AN  AFRICAN 
TRAIL, 


JEAN  KENYON  MACKENZIE 


BV  3630  .B8  M3  1917 ^ 

Mackenzie,  Jean  Kenyon,  187 

-1936. 

An  African  trail  I 


WOMAN  GRINDING  CdKN 
Rhodesia,  Region  of  Mt.  Silinda 


A 


APR   8  1918 


JEAN  KENYON  MACKENZIE 


Mpongwe  greeting:     "What  is  the  news?" 

Conventional  answer :    "Good  news,  but  for  the  hunger!" 


Published  by 

The  Central  Committee  on  the 

United  Study  of  Foreign  Missions 

West  Medford,  Mass. 


COPYRIGHT  1917 

The  Central  Committee  on  the  United 

Study  or  Foreign  Missions 


THE  VERMONT  PRINTING  COMPANY 
BRATTLEBORO,  VT. 


FOREWORD 

It  is  with  peculiar  pleasure  that  The  Central  Com- 
mittee on  the  United  Study  of  Foreign  Missions 
presents  this,  its  seventeenth,  volume. 

Four  years  ago  the  Committee  secured  Miss 
Mackenzie's  consent  to  write  a  text-book  on  the 
approach  of  the  Gospel  to  primitive  peoples — An 
African  Trail  is  the  result. 

The  editors  of  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  who  in  1915 
published  Miss  Mackenzie's  letters  under  the  title 
Black  Sheep,  requested  the  privilege  of  printing  two 
chapters  of  this  text-book  in  their  magazine.  These 
appeared  in  the  issues  of  November  and  December, 
1916,  by  permission  of  The  Central  Committee. 

Miss  Mackenzie;  experienced  missionary,  dis- 
tinguished author,  penetrating  student  of  divine  and 
human  nature,  is  exceptionally  fitted  for  her  task, 
and  has  given  a  unique  and  valuable  contribution 
to  the  literature  of  missions. 

Central  Committee  on  the  United  Study 
OF  Foreign  Missions. 
Mrs.  Henry  W.  Peabody,  Chairman. 
Miss  E.  Harriet  Stanwood. 
Mrs.  Decatur  M.  Sawyer. 
Mrs.  Frank  Mason  North. 
Mrs.  James  A.  Webb,  Jr. 
Mrs.  a.  V.  Pohlman. 
Miss  Olivia  H.  Lawrence. 
Miss  Grace  T.  Colburn,  Secretary. 


CONTENTS 

Page 

Preface    9 

Plans  of  Chapters lo 

Chapter  I.     The  White  Man  in  Africa       .  15 

Chapter  II.    The  Bulu 49 

Chapter  III.     The  Bulu  and  God       ...  79 

Chapter  IV.     The  Ten  Tyings       ....  107 

Chapter  V.    The  New  Tribe 137 

Chapter  VI.    The  New  Custom     ....  173 

A  Brief  Reading  List 209 

Index 217 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facdjo 
Page 

Woman   grinding   Corn,     Rhodesia,    Region   of    Mt. 

Silinda Frontispiece 

An  African  Trail 9 

Home  from  the  Hunt 9 

The  Girl  on  the  Path 24 

BuLU  Women  carrying  Firewood,  Elat      ....  32 

Man  sitting  on  a  Call  Drum  and  Man  lacing  up  a 

Dance  Drum 41 

Village  School  in  Kamerun  Interior 56 

Pastor  of  a  Beach  Church  and  his  Family,  Kamerun. 
This  church  was  built  by  the  congregation  and  is  in 

part  of  cement 56 

Some  of  the  District  School  Teachers,  Efulen, 

W.  Africa 66 

A  Chxtrch  Congregation 73 

Native  Kraal 88 

A  Bantu  Chief 96 

The  Wife  of  a  Christian  Minister        105 

These  Men  are  hunting  a  Runaway  Girl:  A  common 

event  in  Bantu 120 

A  Zulu  Trained  Nurse,  from  the  American  Board's 

Hospital  at  Durban 137 

The  Nursery  Exhibit 152 

Bible  Women  of  THE  Umtasa  Circuit,  Africa  .           .  169 

BuLU  Woman 104 


SOME  SUGGESTIONS  TO  TEACHERS 

/  would  suggest,  in  using  this  book: 

1.  That  the  teacher  famiharize  herself  with  the 
lives  of  a  few  of  the  better  known  African  mission- 
aries, and  that  she  require  members  of  the  class  to 
do  the  same.  This  work  might  result  in  papers 
written  by  students,  or  in  oral  reports  of  such  reading. 

2.  That  she  emphasize,  if  the  class  is  denomina- 
tional, the  lives  of  the  more  conspicuous  African 
missionaries  of  her  denomination.  If  the  class  is 
interdenominational,  such  specific  biography  might 
be  drawn  from  students. 

3.  That  in  the  case  of  a  denominational  class,  the 
teacher  familiarize  herself  with  the  reports  of  the 
African  Mission  of  her  denomination  to  the  Board. 
That  she  note  the  growth  of  the  last  ten  years  as 
emphasized  by  such  reports.  That  she  seek  to 
understand  that  specific  field,  the  strength  and  the 
weakness  of  its  equipment,  its  signal  needs  and  its 
signal  successes. 

However  isolated  the  class  may  be  from  recondite 
sources  of  information,  the  Mission  Boards  will 
supply  informing  literature  and  for  a  nominal  sum. 
The  pastor  of  the  local  church  will  be  glad  to  lend 
the  Mission's  reports  to  the  Boards.  And  there  is, 
in  every  village,  at  least  one  copy  of  the  Encyclope- 
dia Britannica  or  other  reliable  encyclopedia.  Such 
sources,  with  a  few  of  the  conspicuous  biographies 
of  African  missionaries,  will  amplify  every  sugges- 
tion made  in  this  book  and  answer  every  question. 


F  '  ,.  ,>^:; 

-■ 

^^             '  *'»»L  -'fmr^w^ialf       •"  JHMbdd 

^ 

£i;r- -35^1 ',>.'• 

^M 

r  ij^'- 

7     ■<^-        >  '/^'■'l^^^^l 

AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 


HOME  FROM   THE  HLM 


PREFACE 

THERE  is  no  mention  in  this  little  book  of  the 
Mohammedan  influence  in  Africa,  of  the 
slave  trade,  of  the  traffic  in  rum.  These 
tragic  matters  have  seemed  to  lie  outside  the  sim- 
plicities of  this  effort.  Here  is  a  fireside  study — a 
study  of  the  Divine  visitation  to  humble  huts,  of 
that  old  Bulu  rite  of  hospitality — the  sweeping  of 
clay  floors,  of  fare  spread  to  honor  the  Great  Guest. 

Yet  I  must  be  saying  of  the  little  green  cases  of 
rum — that  I  have  seen  boys  and  girls  carry  these 
upon  their  backs  along  the  forest  ways.  The  govern- 
ment of  our  Colony  fought  this  traffic  with  the 
weapon  of  high  license,  and  had  an  ever-widening 
area  of  prohibition. 

Of  slavery,  other  than  domestic  slavery  and  the 
enslavement  of  those  taken  in  local  and  inter-tribal 
wars,  there  is  no  tradition  among  the  Bulu,  who 
have  thrived  remote  from  the  influence  of  that  major 
slaver — the  Arab,  and  that  minor  slaver — the  white 
man,  until  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. 

Now  it  is  true  of  Islam,  as  of  Christ,  that  the  hand 
is  on  the  latch  of  this  forest  home. 


12  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

Pace 

The  schooling  of  the  Bulu  in  the  ten  commandment* — 
The  master  Christians  as  teachers 
The  commandment  as  discipliae 

As  mental  discipline 

As  physical  discipline 

As  moral  discipline 

The  power  of  God  as  present  voith  the  Bulu  in  keeping  the  command- 
ments 

The  inner  vision  that  sustains  the  Bulu 

PLAN  OF  CHAPTER  V. 

The  New  Tribe 137 

The  Tribe  of  God  among  the  Bulu 
The  Creator  of  the  new  tribe 
The  entrance  into  the  new  tribe 
The  "turning  of  the  heart" 
The  bargainers 
The  dreamers 
The  advent  of  the  leaders 

The  adjustments  of  the  new  convert — 
The  initial  confessions 
The  social  adjustments 
The  acknowledgment  and  payment  of  debts 
The  break  with  fetish 

The  regeneration  of  the  convert — 
Probation  and  instruction  before  baptism 
Those  who  backslide 
Those  who  repent 
Those  who  are  restored 

The  growth  in  grace  of  the  convert — 
He  is  a  man  of  faith 
He  is  a  man  of  prayer 
He  is  a  man  of  works 
He  is  a  giver  of  gifts 


AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL  13 

Page 

PLAN  OF  CHAPTER  VI. 

The  New  Custom 173 

New  customs  among  the  Bulu 
Secular  influences  for  change 

Government  control  makes  for — 
New  attitudes  toward  violence 
New  attitudes  toward  labor 

New  customs  of  commerce  following  the  introduction 
of  money  as  currency 
The  presence  of  the  white  man  makes  for — 
New  aspects  in  dress 
New  need  and  new  supply 
New  opportunities 
New  dangers 
God's  law  the  new  restraint 
The  native  Christian  as — 
The  headman  of  the  new  town 
The  new  man  with  new  thoughts 
The  new  woman 
The  maker  of  the  new  marriage 
The  new  marriage  and — 
The  Christian  school 
The  Christian  service 
The  Christian  family 
Old  marriages  made  new 
The  uneven  yoke 
The  new  child 
The  new  schooling 
The  new  neighborhood 
The  Christian  as  neighbor — 
The  neighbor  mother 
The  neighbor  father 
The  neighbor  brother 
The  new  hospitahty 
The  new  consolation 
The  neighbor  evangelist 


BIBLE  READING  AND  PRAYER 
FOR  CHAPTER  I. 

Psalm  91 

Prayer 

OLORD,  who  didst  come  to  seek  and  to  save 
the  lost  and  to  whom  all  power  is  given  in 
heaven  and  in  earth;  hear  the  prayers  of 
Thy  Church  for  those  who,  at  Thy  command,  go 
forth  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature.  Pre- 
serve them  from  all  dangers;  from  perils  by  land 
and  perils  by  water;  from  the  deadly  pestilence;  from 
the  violence  of  the  persecutor;  from  doubt  and  im- 
patience; from  discouragement  and  discord;  and 
from  all  the  devices  of  the  powers  of  darkness. 
While  they  plant  and  water,  O  Lord,  send  Thou  the 
increase;  gather  in  the  multitude  of  the  heathen; 
and  convert  in  Christian  lands  such  as  neglect  Thy 
great  salvation;  that  Thy  Name  may  be  glorified, 
and  Thy  kingdom  come,  O  Saviour  of  the  world; 
to  whom,  with  the  Father  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  be 
honour  and  glory,  world  without  end.  Amen." 
— Book  of  Common  Worship. 


AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 
CHAPTER  I. 

THE   WHITE   MAN   IN   AFRICA 

This  is  a  book  about  a  neighborhood — a  neighbor- 
hood like  many  others  in  the  forests  of  equatorial 
Africa.  It  is  a  book  about  a  tribe,  one  like  many 
others  of  the  tribes  of  the  Bantu  people  of  Africa. 
It  is  a  book  about  an  adventure — an  African  adven- 
ture which  repeats  itself  wherever  the  Word  of  God 
makes  entrance  into  a  neighborhood  of  those  forests 
and  addresses  itself  to  those  tribes.  This  is  not  a  book 
of  ethnology  or  anthropology  or  zoology  or  geog- 
raphy, though  in  our  neighborhood  and  in  our  tribe 
there  is  rich  quarry  for  such  effort.  Neither  is  it  a 
book  of  missionary  history  or  biography,  though  we 
have  been  not  without  honor  in  our  corps  and  history. 
This  book  is  an  account  of  the  impact  of  the  Word 
of  God,  in  a  Bantu  dialect,  upon  the  hearts  of  some 
of  the  tribes  of  the  Bantu. 

His  approach  The  tribes  of  the  Bantu  have  loved 
by  the  sea.  ^q  jjyg  behind  stockades,  and  about 

their  home  of  Central  and  Southern  Africa  is  the 
ultimate  stockade  of  the  surf.  Along  the  African 
coasts  there  is  a  natural  barrier  in  the  wall  of  surf 
upon  a  shore  where  there  are  few  harbors,  inadequate 
harbors,  or  none.  Here  are  leagues  of  open  sea  beach 
broken  at  intervals  by  the  brown  flood  of  rivers  that 


10  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

are  navigable  no  more  than  a  few  miles  inland, 
whei'e,  among  the  hills  of  the  coast  ranges,  they  are 
torn  into  rapids.  Between  the  Delta  of  the  Niger 
on  the  west  coast  of  Africa  and  the  mouth  of  the 
Congo  there  is  a  stretch  of  a  thousand  miles  of  sea- 
board where  there  is  at  best,  for  a  liner,  no  more  than 
a  few  hours'  journey  up  a  river's  mouth  to  the  dimin- 
ishing count  of  fathoms  from  the  quartermaster. 

Along  this  west  coast  none  of  the  South  African 
steamers  call;  there  is  here  a  particularly  local  trade. 
Steamers  of  three  thousand  tons — of  five  thousand 
tons — lie  off  shore  and  put  passengers  over  the  side 
into  surf  boats.  These  passengers  will  be  govern- 
ment officials,  military  and  civil;  traders,  who  come 
more  and  more  to  be  called  "merchants";  planters, 
some  of  whom  venture  latterly  to  bring  their  wives; 
explorers,  and  scientists  who  are  explorers;  nurses 
for  the  hospitals  in  the  settlements,  and  mission- 
aries; not  often,  indeed  never  in  my  own  experience, 
a  globe  trotter.  Thus — along  the  Ivory  Coast,  the 
Gold  Coast,  the  Slave  Coast,  into  French,  English, 
Spanish,  Portuguese,  and  German  colonies — go  the 
white  men  and  their  cargoes. 

This  book  is  three  words,  as  the  Bantu  of  our 
neighborhood  say,  from  a  missionary  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church  in  the  United  States  of  America, 
whose  West  Africa  Mission  is  in  Southern  Kamerun. 
_  There  is  little  space  in  these  three 

words  for  the  adventures  of  the 
white  man,  and  yet,  because  he  is  your  tribal  brother, 
give  a  thought  to  him  as  he  goes  over  the  ship's  side. 


THE  WHITE  MAN  IN  AFRICA  17 

In  the  main  he  is  young.  His  helmet  is  new  against 
the  sun,  his  baggage  is  all  of  zinc  or  tin  or  japanned 
steel  against  the  rains  and  the  roaches  and  the  white 
ants.  He  sits  in  the  surf  boat  between  the  brown 
bodies  of  the  rowers  who  line  the  gimwales.  They 
sing  the  songs  of  rowing — they  rise  and  fall  to  the 
paddle  with  the  impeccable  rhythm  of  their  race; 
the  new  man  marks  the  incredible  white  of  their 
teeth  and  the  whites  of  their  brilliant  eyes.  His 
unused  attention  is  wine  to  them — they  shout  and 
swing  in  an  accelerated  and  a  measured  frenzy  as 
one  man.  They  are  the  sinews  of  the  hand  that 
Africa  has  put  out  to  pluck  the  white  man  from  the 
deck — where  he  stood  among  his  brothers,  those  that 
speak  his  tongue  and  follow  his  customs.  By  that 
hand  he  will  be  led  along  what  lonely  paths  to  what 
foreign  experiences!  That  black  hand  may  become 
to  him  hateful,  or  dear;  it  may  crush  him  or  it  may, 
after  rainy  seasons  and  dry,  replace  him  on  the  deck 
of  a  steamer  making  north.  But  be  sure  of  this — 
the  print  of  those  fingers  is  upon  him — the  spirit  and 
the  body  of  him — to  the  end  of  his  days.  That  im- 
print is  upon  him  like  the  scar  of  the  lion's  paw  on  the 
arm  of  Livingstone.  His  fevers — for  it  is  a  malarial 
country,  his  languors — for  it  is  a  tropical  country, 
his  lonelinesses — for  it  is  an  unsettled  country,  his 
depressions  and  repulsions — for  it  is  an  evil  country, 
these  experiences,  partly  physical  and  partly  spirit- 
ual, delicately  and  permanently  mar  him.  And  his 
long  marches  in  the  forest,  his  bed  and  his  bread 
beside  the  trail,  the  smell  of  age-old  mold   and   of 


18  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

rotting  mud  and  of  wood  fires,  his  contact  with  the 
mind  and  with  the  bodies  of  the  tribes  of  the  wilder- 
ness, his  acquisition,  however  hmited,  of  a  primitive 
tongue  that  opens  the  door,  however  httle,  into  the 
world  of  primitive  thought — these  things  build  mem- 
ories and  wake  desires  that  are  to  become  ineradi- 
cable parts  of  his  being. 

This  much  is  true  of  every  white  man  who  goes 
through  the  tiers  of  surf  between  the  lines  of  rowers 
— he  is  launched  upon  adventures  of  the  body  and 
of  the  spirit  foreign  to  his  tribe  and  modifying  to  his 
mental  attitude,  however  fixed. 

There  is,  between  Cape  Palmas  and  Kamerun, 
twelve  hundred  miles  of  a  lee  coast  making  east  along 
the  line  of  the  fifth  degree  north.  Kamerun  Colony 
has  its  two  hundred  miles  of  beach  on  the  Bight  of 
Biafra  in  the  Gulf  of  Guinea.  Here  the  coast  makes 
a  little  east  of  south.  Kamerun  forms  the  northwest 
corner  of  the  great  Central  African  plateau. 
His  settlement  Back  of  the  surf  and  the  sand  on  this 
on  the  beach.  equatorial  coast  is  the  forest,  and 
back  of  that,  again,  is  the  grass  country.  The  forest 
belt  in  southern  Kamerun  is  from  three  to  five  hun- 
dred miles  wide.  Here  the  country  is  a  surge  of  hills, 
the  last  effort  of  the  Crystal  Range  from  the  south. 
Noble  portals  stand  north  of  the  entrance  to  south- 
ern Kamerun,  the  nearly  f ourteen-thousand  foot  rise 
of  the  volcanic  Kamerun  Mountain  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Duala  river,  and  thirty  miles  out  to  sea  the  rise 
from  its  island  base  of  the  mountain  of  Fernando  Po, 
nine  thousand  feet,  blue  as  a  plum,  against  the  west. 


THE  WHITE  MAN  IN  AFRICA  19 

All  down  the  west  coast  of  Africa,  between  the  wall 
of  the  forest  and  the  wall  of  surf,  lies  the  long  line  of 
beach  towns.  On  the  thin  ribbon  of  the  shore  there 
are  the  settlements  of  the  white  man,  single  file, 
threading  their  long  way  down  the  path  of  least  re- 
sistance,— little  white  settlements,  from  the  amazing 
castles  that  were  built  by  the  Portuguese  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  captured  by  the  Dutch  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  purchased  by  the  English  in  the 
nineteenth  century, — from  these  great  fortresses 
white-washed  and  brilliant  against  the  forest  wall, 
to  the  more  modern  settlements  of  the  Gold  Coast, 
the  Ivory  Coast,  the  Slave  Coast.  The  white  man 
has  whitewashed  his  town  and  roofed  it  with  zinc  or 
with  tile.  There  it  blinks,  a  high  light  in  the  per- 
petual haze  that  hangs  upon  the  coast  line.  But 
these  considerable  settlements,  these  metropolises 
of  the  west  coast,  with  their  population  of  from  one 
hundred  to  four  hundred  white  men,  are  spaced  at 
intervals  of  many  miles  down  that  long  ribbon  of 
sand,  and  the  intervals  are  filled  with  lesser  settle- 
ments, little  groups  of  two  and  three  houses,  always 
white-washed,  roofed  with  zinc,  piercing  at  night 
with  a  little  huddle  of  lighted  windows  a  universal 
darkness. 

For  generations  the  white  man  has 
busied  himself  on  the  coasts  of  Africa 
with  ivory,  with  gold,  with  spices,  with  the  heart- 
broken bodies  of  black  men,  with  the  oil  of  the  palm 
nut,  and  latterly  with  rubber  and  cocoa.  For  genera- 
tions ships  have  lain  off  shore  waiting  upon  cargo. 


to  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

and  for  generations  long  caravans  of  black  men  have 
brought  treasure  out  of  the  mterior  and  have  carried 
back  articles  of  barter.  Your  young  trader  under  his 
new  helmet — does  he  guess  of  how  long  a  caravan  he 
is  a  follower?*  Or  how,  three  thousand  years  before 
the  Ethiopian  met  Philip  on  the  way  that  went  south 
through  the  desert,  there  were  Egyptian  traders 
going  south  into  a  land  called  "Punt,"  where  the 
women  were  tattooed,  and  where  they  sold  dwarfs? 
Does  the  lonely  young  chap  from  Manchester  who 
has  gone  to  some  little  inland  clearing  of  East  or 
West  or  South  Africa,  who  trades  in  his  bark  hut 
behind  his  brush  fence  with  the  tribes  of  the  Bantu, 
does  he  know  that  in  the  sixth  century,  three  months' 
journey  south  of  Abyssinia,  other  young  traders 
were  living  behind  brush  fences,  trading  in  salt  and 
iron  for  gold  and  ivory?  Yes,  they  too,  they  traded 
in  salt.  And  they,  too — with  their  gain  of  ivory  and 
gold  on  the  backs  of  black  men — they  made  forced 
marches  to  be  quit  of  the  country  before  the  miseries 
of  the  rainy  season.  Perhaps  they,  too,  had  their 
little  smattering  of  that  form  of  native  speech  which 
was  then  current  among  tribes  which  may  have  been 
Bantu.  But  your  young  trader  haggling  in  the  warm 
dusk  of  his  "factory"  over  the  purchase  of  ivory  and 
rubber,  over  the  selling  of  salt  fish  and  salt  and  scent 
and  gin  and  beads  and  iron  kettles  and  bright 
calicoes  and  matches — what  does  he  know  of  those 


*  These  notes  were  made  from  the  series  of  articles  by  W.  Ham- 
mond Tooke,  The  Bantu  in  the  Tenth  Century.  Published  in  the 
African  Monthly,  vol.  I,  1906-1907. 


THE  WHITE  MAN  IN  AFRICA  21 

other  young  men  who  bought  ivory  and  gold  for  iron 
and  salt  in  the  sixth  century,  from  other  such  black 
people  tattooed  like  these,  leaning  upon  their  spears 
like  these,  and  clamoring  like  these  in  a  barbarous 
tongue  and  with  urgent  gesture? 

*Hanno  with  his  "fifty  oared  galleys"  did  not  sail 
so  far  south,  on  his  west-coast  expedition  in  the 
sixth  century,  B.  C,  as  our  Kamerun  country;  there 
was  no  Carthaginian  trading  post  here,  nor  other 
white  man  his  mark,  until  at  the  close  of  the  fif- 
teenth century  the  Portuguese  sailed  between  the 
Kamerun  and  Fernando  Po.  As  early  as  the  seven- 
teenth century  European  traders  were  settled  on  the 
coast,  about  the  mouth  of  the  Kamerun  river. 

„.  .  ,  ,  Not  until,  in  the  eighties,  the  coimtry 
His  way  inland.  '       ^  j.     j     •    •  ..     x- 

came  under  iiermani  admmistration 

did  the  white  trader  go  inland.  The  white  man's 
invasion  of  Africa  has  been  in  the  main  by  the  water- 
ways, and  none  of  the  rivers  of  Southern  Kamerun 
is  an  open  door.  George  Grenfell,  the  English  Bap- 
tist missionary,  explored  the  lower  reaches  of  the 
Sanaga  river  in  the  late  seventies;  but  it  remained 
for  Dr.  Adolphus  Good  of  the  Presbyterian  Mission 
to  enter  the  country  south  of  the  Sanaga  and  north 
of  the  Campo.  This  he  did  in  the  early  nineties. 
Up  to  that  very  recent  date,  the  inland  tribes  of  this 

*  The  Opening  up  of  Africa,  by  Sir  H.  H.  Johnston,  p.  80. 

t  While  this  little  book  was  in  hand  the  white  man's  war  raged 
in  the  Kamerun.  In  the  spring  of  1916  the  colony  passed  from 
the  hands  of  the  Germans  into  the  hands  of  the  Allies.  Southern 
Kamerun,  in  particular,  is  now  administered  by  the  French. 


22  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

region  lived  unmodified  by  the  presence  of  the  white 
man.  There  were  no  other  clearings  in  that  forest 
than  the  black  man's  clearings,  and  no  other  roads 
than  those  little  trails  sunk  in  the  deep  sea  of  green 
where  black  men,  single  file,  journeyed  from  clearing 
to  clearing.  It  is  otherwise  now,  for  the  government 
has  opened  up  several  great  highways  upon  which 
under  the  amazing  and  intolerable  sunlight  the 
black  men  travel  in  long  caravans,  ahvays  single  file. 
Rubber,  cocoa,  ivory,  ebony,  are  the  treasures  that 
come  out  of  the  east  over  the  white  man's  highway 
on  the  backs  of  men,  women  and  children. 
„.  .  „  And  back  by  way  of  the  highroad 

His  influence.  „  i      i         i  i      •  •  i 

irom  the  beach  to  the  interior  go  the 

things  of  the  white  man.  A  tide  of  change  is  every- 
where coming  in  upon  the  black  man,  as  I  have  seen 
the  white  tides  of  the  ides  of  March  sweep  up  the 
west-coast  beaches  and  into  the  green  gloom  of  the 
forest.  Now,  old  things  are  being  swept  away  and 
new  things  are  being  driven  into  the  black  man's 
country.  Those  roads  that  cleave  the  forest  are  like 
breaches  in  an  age-old  stockade,  and  through  every 
breach  rushes  the  master  of  change — the  white  man, 
the  modifier  of  thought,  of  aspect,  of  manners,  of 
custom — exacting  by  his  very  presence  new  attitudes 
toward  life,  toward  murder,  toward  women,  toward 
labor.  The  path  of  the  white  man  is  marked  by 
change,  be  he  trader,  governor,  or  missionary. 
The  missionary:  The  trail  of  the  missionary — ^j'^ou 
His  trail.  know   those   trails.  You   have   seen 

them  cast  like  a  net  upon  the  map  of  Africa.  Say — 


THE  WHITE  MAN  IN  AFRICA  23 

a  web  spun  out  of  the  vitals  of  enduring  men — little 
red  filaments  upon  the  map  of  Africa  that  mark  the 
trails  of  the  Moffats  and  the  Livingstones,  of  the 
Casalis  and  the  PelHsiers  and  the  Coillards,  of  Krapf 
and  Rebmann,  of  Mackay  and  Hannington,  of 
Grenfell,  of  Louw,  of  many  other  major  heroes  who 
are  remembered,  of  faithful  and  forgotten  souls  whose 
supreme  efforts  were  humbly  and  obscurely  main- 
tained. There  upon  the  map  you  may  follow  the 
web  of  their  wanderings,  and  from  the  more  articu- 
late of  these  devoted  vagabonds  you  may  learn  some- 
thing of  the  fashion  of  those  trails  that  run  so  fair 
upon  the  map.  Livingstone's  trail  was  twenty -nine 
thousand  miles  long.  *Writing  of  an  April  journey 
in  1851  he  says  that  his  caravan  crossed  the  driest 
desert  he  had  ever  seen  "with  not  an  insect  or  a  bird 
to  break  the  stillness.  On  the  third  day  a  bird 
chirped  in  a  bush,  when  a  dog  began  to  bark!"  He 
and  his  family  were  thirsty,  the  water  had  been 
wasted  by  a  servant,  and  of  his  children  he  says, 
"The  less  there  was  of  water,  the  more  thirsty  the 
little  rogues  became."  On  the  fifth  day  their  need 
was  supplied.  Of  another  day  and  a  swamp  trail  he 
writes,  "With  our  hands  all  raw,  and  knees  through 
our  trousers,  we  at  length  emerged."  And  again  of  a 
rainy  season  day,  "We  got  soaked  by  going  on  and 
sodden  if  we  stood  still";  and  on  this  journey  he 
carried  his  watch  under  his  arm  pit  to  keep  it  dry, 
fArnot's  long  trail  ran  like  Livingstone's,  sodden 

*  Personal  Life  of  David  Livingstone,  W.  Gorden  Blaikie,  p.  125. 
t  Garenganze,  by  Fred  S.  Arnot,  p.  48. 


24  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

and  parched.  He  journeyed  short  of  food,  short  of 
water,  of  carriers.  He  once  walked  sixty  miles  in  one 
day  and  two  nights,  and  that  upon  a  crutch. 

Hannington,  Bishop  of  Uganda,  in  three  days  and 
a  half -hour,  covered  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles. 
*There  was  a  donkey  in  that  caravan  to  which 
Hannington,  for  the  hardships  of  the  way,  "tenderly 
apologized."  "As  a  sign  how  tired  one  can  be,"  he 
writes,  "on  Friday  last,  when  going  to  bed,  I  took  a 
bite  from  a  biscuit  and  fell  asleep  with  the  first 
mouthful  still  in  my  mouth  and  the  rest  in  my  hand." 
In  what  forest  shade  or  under  what  unkind  sun  or 
beaten  upon  by  what  killing  rains  these  and  other 
men  spun  out  their  filaments  of  effort  that  Africa 
might  be  netted  with  trails  for  the  feet  of  the  messen- 
gers, let  the  records  of  the  pioneers  tell  you;  and  if 
we  would  emphasize  their  perilous  adventures,  be 
sure  that  they  would  not  put  the  emphasis  there. 

^        .,     .  These  "things  of  the  road"  are  not  all 

The  trail  today.  .  » 

things  of  the  past.  There  are,  accord- 
ing to  Kumni,t  fifteen  hundred  missionaries  in 
Africa,  and  many  of  these  at  this  hour  are  spinnmg 
out  of  their  vitals  the  day's  journey.  Tonight  they 
will  drink  from  a  village  spring,  they  will  eat  out  of  a 
native  pot,  they  will  talk  long  under  the  stars  to 
headmen,  to  lesser  men,  to  women  and  children. 
They  will  sleep  upon  the  slats  of  a  native  bed,  or 
upon  the  ground.  About  them  in  the  dark  the  forest 
will  sigh,  dropping  its  heavy  dews.  Tomorrow  they 

*  James  Hannington,  by  E.  C.  Dawson,  pp.  383-386. 
t  KontrHon-Nofer,  by  H.  K.  W.  Kumm,  p.  192. 


THE  GIRL  ON  THE  PATH 


THE  WHITE  MAN  IN  AFRICA  25 

will  be  astir  when  the  guinea  fowl  calls  the  hour 
before  the  dawn.  Under  the  sun  or  the  rain  of  to- 
morrow they  will  be  urging  their  bicycles  or  their 
motor  cycles  over  the  open  roads,  or  taking  on  foot 
or  in  a  hammock  or  in  a  "bush  car" — with  its  one 
wheel  and  its  men  in  the  shafts  behind  and  before — 
the  little  paths  of  the  forest.  Canoes  and  motor 
boats  and  little  coughing  river  steamers  will  bear 
under  the  sun  or  the  rain  of  today  and  tomorrow  the 
vagabonds  of  Christ,  making  little  trails  upon  the 
map  of  His  African  Kingdom. 

The  missionary:  So  much  lor  those  ways  on  African 
His  settlement,  maps  that  are  the  missionary  his 
mark.  What  of  the  missionary  his  town? 

There  are  nearly  one  hundred  Protestant  societies 
at  work  in  Africa;  of  these  twenty-four  are  American, 
The  church  at  home,  concerned  for  the  missionaries 
of  these  twenty-four  societies,  follows  them  with 
faithful  eyes  upon  the  map,  making  their  way  to 
destinations  with  names,  habitations  having  a  name, 
and  so  established  in  the  mind  of  the  white  man. 
Those  little  caravans  of  our  own  tribe,  making  their 
way  to  one  or  another  of  those  habitations  with  a 
name,  most  of  us  have  followed  such  upon  the  map 
of  Africa.  Our  imaginations  have  laid  hold  upon 
those  printed  names — to  be  printed  so  large  by  such 
reputable  publishers — this  has  reassured  us  of  the 
reality,  the  stability,  the  habitability  of  those  places 
where  our  missionaries  live. 

The  greater  For  myself  I  tell  you  of  those  settle- 

settlements,  ments  with  names  upon  the  map  of 


26  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

Equatorial  Africa — I  know  them.  To  you  who  read 
the  grandest  of  them  would  look  mean  and  small 
when  the  sun  "is  in  the  middle,"  but  to  a  missionary 
coming  upon  them  after  long  journeys  by  bush  or 
grass  country,  by  river  or  the  sea,  to  him  that 
settlement  of  his  tribal  brothers,  built  of  brick  or 
plank  and  roofed  with  tile  or  zinc,  is  a  kind  of  mira- 
cle. Here  will  be  a  church  and  a  schoolhouse,  work- 
shops, the  clatter  of  a  sawmill.  Here  will  be  a 
hospital.  From  the  houses  of  white  people,  with 
their  curtained  windows,  the  faces  of  white 
women  greet  him,  and  in  some  places  and  in 
some  golden  hours,  little  white  children  run  to 
meet  him.  Such  a  settlement,  so  inhabited,  and 
set  about  with  thrifty  plantations,  and  suddenly 
agitated  with  a  welcome  to  himself  from  the  brown 
hundreds  of  school  boys  and  school  girls,  and  the 
apprentices  from  the  shops,  and  the  convalescing 
sick  from  the  hospitals,  and  the  Christians  of  the 
neighborhood  who  have  had  news  of  him — such  a 
settlement  is  marvelous  in  his  eyes,  in  the  eyes  of 
man  or  woman.  The  eyes  of  new  young  women, 
saddened  by  "the  war  both  of  the  journey  and  the 
pity,"  how  they  have  run  over  with  good  tears  of 
comfort  and  of  hope  when  first  they  fed  upon  the 
huddled  roofs  of  the  "missionary  town"  and  the 
welcoming  faces,  black  and  white. 
The  lesser  And  of  the  meanest  of  such  settle- 

settlements,  ments  I  would  say  to  you  who  might 

pass  it  and  not  know  the  solitary  white-man's  house 
for  the  house  of  a  white  man — to  him  it  is  a  home. 


THE  WHITE  MAN  IN  AFRICA  27 

The  day  he  and  his  little  gang  of  school  boys  set 
about  the  clearing,  he  rejoiced,  and  so  he  did  when 
the  posts  went  up,  when  with  the  song  of  the  roof- 
tree  the  men  brought  the  ridgepole  in  from  the 
forest,  when  the  bark  walls  were  laid  to  the  up- 
rights, when  he  beheld  men  as  trees  walking  with 
the  palm  leaves  for  the  thatch  upon  their  backs  and 
the  song  of  the  roof  thatch  in  their  mouths;  every 
day  of  all  these  days  of  effort  the  white  man  rejoiced. 
A  man  who  has  built  a  lodge  for  himself  m  the  wilder- 
ness will  never  forget  the  day  he  took  possession, 
or  his  first  night  under  the  shelter  of  that  rustling 
roof.  Read  the  letter  he  wrote  home  about  his 
beautiful  new  house  and  you  will  never  be  guessing 
its  dimensions,  or  that  the  white  man  is  still  waiting, 
after  six  months,  for  the  window  glass  to  "come  up 
from  the  beach." 

To  speak  with  men  who  travel  by 
such  trails  and  who  settle  under  such 
roofs,you  write  your  letters — oryou  do  not  write  them. 
We  are  speaking  now  of  the  white  man's  adventure 
in  Africa,  and  so  I  must  be  speaking  of  the  mail-man 
— that  black  carrier  with  the  mail,  who,  when 
he  leaves  the  white  man's  town  for  the  beach,  is 
charged  never  to  linger.  No  sore  feet  are  permitted 
him,  nor  deaths  of  relatives  in  towns  by  the  way,  nor 
rivers  in  flood  to  hinder  him.  Noah's  dove  was 
doubtless  so  charged.  The  return  of  that  carrier  to 
the  settlement  is  calculated  to  a  day;  the  dawn  of  the 
day  he  should  return  has  the  face  of  a  "mail  day"; 
and  if  he  delaj'^s  the  white  man  watches  the  path  in 


28  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

the  moonlight.  This  is  the  hungry  country,  and  it  is 
not  a  small  matter  that  when  he  returns  the  carrier 
has  sometimes  no  more  than  half  a  load — or  none. 
♦Livingstone  was  at  one  time  several  years  without 
letters,  and  on  a  day — a  memorable  day  to  him  be 
sure — he  received  one  letter  and  the  word  that  forty 
had  been  lost.  fAt  another  time  after  long  joumey- 
ings  he  came  to  the  west  coast,  to  St.  Paul  de 
Loando,  whera  he  thought  to  receive  many  letters. 
He  received  none.  Take  note  in  the  biographies  of 
almost  any  African  missionary  of  the  mention  of  the 
post.  Hear  in  Uganda  the  runners  with  the  mail  who 
cry  as  they  run  "A  letter!  A  letter!  It  is  burning  in 
my  hand!  A  letter!"  And  remember  how  long,  in 
the  boot  of  a  dead  Belgian,  there  moldered  that 
letter  from  Stanley  which  was  to  summon  the  church 
to  the  conversion  of  Uganda. 
And  if  you  say  these  are  tales  of 

"Old,  unhappy,  far-off  things. 
And  battles  long  ago," 

I  tell  you.  No.    I  received  a  letter  the  other  day 

from  a  missionary  mother  in  Africa,  who  had  news 

after  a  six  months'  silence,  from  her  little  ones  at 

home,  "and  her  heart  was  like  to  burst  with  joy." 

That  night  in  that  little  brown  bark  hut  in  that 

hungry  country,  there  was  feasting. 

„.    ,  Dreams  there  were,  too.   The  white 

His  dreams. 

man  s  dreams  of  home  m  a  strange 

land.  Arnot  feverish,  alternately  chilled  and  burning, 

*  Personal  Life  of  David  Livingstone,  W.  Gorden  Blaikie,  p.  426. 
t  Ibid,  p.  179. 


THE  WHITE  MAN  IN  AFRICA  29 

dreaming  in  his  lonely  hut  at  Garenganze,  "I  was 
always  at  home  in  a  sunny  snow-white  bed,  with  a 
big  fire  blazing  in  the  room,  and  my  mother  bringing 
in  a  tray." 

Livingstone  lying  on  the  ground  in  the  midst  of 
his  caravan,  dreaming  that  he  had  apartments  in  a 
hotel  at  home,  where  they  fed  him  roast  beef.  Home- 
sick men  and  women  sleeping  under  alien  stars  and 
to  the  throbbing  of  African  drums,  comforted  by 
dreams.  Do  you  think  that  they  so  dreamed  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  that  now,  in  the  twentieth, 
they  sleep  without  dreams? 

„.       „   .  This  is  not  a  moment  in  human  ex- 

His  suffenngs.  .  i         .i  «•     •  v      -     ^ 

perience  when  the  sunermg,  physical 

and  emotional,  of  the  missionary  can  be  emphasized. 
His  endurance  is  everywhere  matched  today  by  a 
common  human  endurance  of  a  superhuman  anguish. 
To  lack  bread,  to  lack  water,  to  lie  upon  the  ground, 
to  bear  the  sun  and  rain,  to  be  wounded  and  without 
care,  to  be  in  fever  and  without  shelter,  even  to  die 
without  friend  or  solace  and  to  bury  without  leisure 
the  dead — what  are  these  but  the  daily  fare  of  so 
many  of  the  sons  of  the  white  man?  And  in  the  days 
"before  the  war" — days  of  a  common  comfort  and 
prosperity  among  white  men  in  which  the  mission- 
ary had  resigned  his  part — he  was  not  one  to  count 
the  cost  dear.  "These  people  must  have  ten  lives, 
they  are  so  fearless  of  death/'  said  a  hostile  chief  of 
Moffat.  The  abandoned  vagabond  nature  of  mis- 
sionaries is  written  in  every  biography.  It  must  be 
remembered  of  him  that  he  is  a  shepherd — that  he 


80  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

is  a  fisherman — vocations  of  gaiety  and  optimism. 
And  he  is  that — he  is  an  optimist,  without  proper 
regard  for  his  circumstance,  laughing  where  he 
should  weep,  sleeping  where  he  should  have  a  care, 
leaning  like  a  child  upon  an  arm  which  is — to  all 
but  himself — invisible.  There  he  leans;  and  when 
the  hour  of  terror  strikes,  or  the  afternoon  of  effort 
darkens  to  a  quick  night,  when  the  things  of  this 
world  fall  away  from  the  feet  of  this  child  of  God — 
underneath  him  are  the  everlasting  arms.  *0n  the 
eve  of  the  16th  of  March,  in  1561,  in  the  Zambesi 
country.  Father  Silveira,  well  knowing  he  is  about 
to  die — throws  himself  upon  his  bed  of  reeds  and 
sleeps.  fHannington,  the  optimist — mark  him  at 
last  in  that  unspeakable  hut  in  Uganda,  the  howl  of 
hyenas  in  his  ears,  drunken  guards  about  him,  fever 
stealing  upon  him — ^he  writes  in  that  little  diary 
which  must  be  as  precious  to  the  people  of  the  tribe 
of  God  as  Scott's  diary  is  precious  to  the  English, 
"Was  held  up  by  Psalm  30,  which  came  with  great 
power."  Was  he  not  "held  up"?  Listen  to  him  on 
that  same  day,  the  29th  of  October,  1885,  when  he 
was  led  out  to  be  shot  with  his  own  rifle — listen  to 
him  make  his  ultimate  calculations,  count  the  cost 
and  sum  it  up.  "Go  tell  Mwanga  that  I  die  for  the 
Baganda  and  that  I  have  purchased  the  road  to 
Uganda  with  my  life."  Listen  to  f  Adolphus  Good, 

*  A  History  of  Christian  Missions  in  South  Africa,  by  J.  du 
Plessis,  p.  10. 

t  James  Hannington,  by  E.  C.  Dawson,  pp.  460-462. 
i  A  Life  for  Africa,  by  Ellen  Parsons,  pp.  285, 288. 


THE  WHITE  aiAN  IN  AFRICA  31 

at  his  last  reckoning  in  the  little  bark  house  at 

Efulen — counting    the    cost,     subtracting    himself 

from  the  sum,  and  borrowing  of  God  for  the  future 

expenses  of  the  work  among  the  Bulu.  "May  good 

men,"  beseeches  this  good  man  about  to  die,  "may 

good  men  never  be  lacking  for  the  Interior." 

„.   , .     ,  This  white  man  in  Africa  is  so  often 

His  mends.  i  •     /-.     i      •         ^  • 

lonely,  and  lor  this  (jod  gives  mm  a 

friend.  These  friends  of  the  white  man,  they  make 
such  humble  appearance  in  books,  in  letters  written 
home.  The  friend  will  be  a  cook,  often  a  cook  or  a 
lad  that  carries  a  lantern,  or  some  "poor  body"  that 
has  been  picked  up  by  the  way.  Truly  there  are  for 
every  white  man  who  ventures — and  for  every 
woman — such  friends;  and  be  sure  that  if  such 
friendship  seems  at  long  range  to  be  inadequate,  it 
will  not,  in  its  day,  so  seem.  *Poor  Mrs.  Helmore  on 
the  way  to  Linyanti,  thirsty  all  day,  dreading  for 
her  children  the  morrow's  thirst  and  seeing  in  the 
moonlight  a  tall  young  girl  carrying  a  calabash  of 
water — had  she  not  a  friend  .f*  This  girl  had  been  a 
servant  of  the  Helmores,  and  for  her  friends  she 
walked  four  hours  alone  at  night  in  a  strange  coun- 
try infested  with  lions.  fRobert  Moffat  of  a  certain 
evening  long  ago  on  the  banks  of  the  Orange  river, 
among  an  unfriendly  people  who  would  not  sell  him 
milk,  no,  not  even  for  the  buttons  on  his  coat,  which 
he  offered — ^had  he  not  a  friend.''  In  the  twilight 

*  Ten  Years  Iforth  of  the  Orange  River,  by  John  Mackenzie, 
p.  125. 

t  Labors  and  Scenes  in  South  Africa,  by  Robert  Moffat,  p.  405. 


32  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

she  comes  stealing  up  and  he  does  not  know  her — 
he  does  not  know  yet  that  God  has  given  him  a 
friend.  She  has  a  bundle  of  wood  on  her  head.  She 
has  a  calabash  of  milk,  she  has  meat.  She  lays  the 
fire.  She  dresses  the  meat.  She  is  very  silent,  very 
busy,  until  at  last  she  says — "I  love  Him  whose 
servants  ye  are,  and  surely  it  is  my  duty  to 
give  you  a  cup  of  cold  water  in  His  name.  My  heart 
is  full,  therefore,  I  cannot  speak  the  joy  I  feel  to  see 
you  in  this  out-of- the- world  place."  Every  African 
missionary  who  reads  of  this  evening  meal  matches 
that  old  woman  with  some  friend  of  his  own,  who 
came  creeping  up  in  the  dusk  with  a  dinner  of  herbs 
and  a  gift  of  love.  We  know  them,  these  old  women. 
Some  friends — Moffat  had  such,  too — are  grander. 
Moffat,  who  left  for  the  Orange-river  country  against 
the  advice  of  his  friends — they  thought  he  would 
perish — came  back  with  a  grand  friend — Africaner.* 
Africaner  was  to  have  killed  him,  and  now  they  two 
come  back  to  Capetown  hand  in  hand.  Khama  was 
such  a  princely  friend  to  many  missionaries — read 
how  he  served  Coillard  for  one.  And  in  speaking  of 
friends  I  am  not  meaning  the  givers  of  goats,  of 
hens,  of  women  if  the  missionary  would  take  them, 
we  know  these,  too.  I  am  thinking  of  those  black 
maternal  bands  upon  the  hair  of  lonely  white  women, 
of  kind  voices  at  the  end  of  weary  journeys  that  ask, 
"What  will  my  child  eat  tonight?"  Of  old  Nana  who 
went  down  into  the  valley  of  the  shadow  with  the 

*  Labors  and  Scenes  in  South  Africa,  by  Robert  Moffat,  pp.  72. 
126. 


THE  WHITE  MAN  IN  AFRICA  33 

white  mother  of  the  Bulu,  who  prayed  for  her  re- 
covery all  night  and  in  the  morning  said,  "I  think 
the  Lord  will  let  you  stay."  I  think  of  the  young  lad, 
Aloni,*  servant  to  George  Pilkington  of  Uganda, 
who  was  with  his  master  that  day  he  was  shot  down 
by  the  rebel  Sudanese. 

"My  master — ^you  are  dying.  Death  has  come." 

"Yes,  my  child,  it  is  as  you  say." 

"Sebo,  he  that  believeth  in  Christ,  although  he 
die,  yet  shall  he  live." 

"Yes,  my  child — as  you  say,  shall  never  die." 

And  weary  Livingstone,  dead  at  last,  how  was  he 
served  by  his  two  faithful  friends,  Susi  and  Chumat 

For  such  love  as  these  friends  give  the  missionary 
there  is  no  adequate  return  but  love.  Of  another 
black  friend  of  his  Pilkington  wrote,  "I  loved  him 
with  all  my  soul."  And  of  f  James  Sutherland  it  is 
written  that  when  his  enemies  among  the  Ngoni 
were  planning  to  drive  him  from  his  service  of  the 
Ngoni,  he  thought  he  would  sell  himself  as  slave  to 
them  and  chose  for  owner  a  friend  of  his,  "an  old 
and  much-respected  woman." 

So  they  love  and  are  loved,  these  missionaries. 
They  love  each  other,  too.  Sara  has  followed  Abra- 
ham on  so  many  of  the  trails  of  Africa,  you  will  find 
her  in  so  many  biographies,  you  will  find  her  name 
in  your  annual  reports.  Beautiful  marriages  have 
not  failed  in  Africa,  nor  friendships.  It  is  hard  for 
a  missionary  to  speak  without  emotion  of  the  devo- 

*  Pilkington  of  Uganda,  by  C.  F.  Harford-Battersby,  p.  337. 
t  Among  the  Wild  Ngoni,  by  W.  A.  Elmslie,  p.  220. 


S4  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

tion  between  missionaries  bound  to  common  tasks  in 
lonely  places.  Ruth  follows  Naomi,  David  is  joined 
to  Jonathan,  in  a  tenderness  that  passes  kinship. 
And  if  there  is  record  of  teams  that  did  not  pull 
together,  why  so  there  is  record — and  infinitely  more 
abundant — of  those  who  were  lovely  and  pleasant 
in  their  lives.  Think  on  these  things. 
His  hour  of  About  the  hour  of  disillusion.  There 

disniusion.  is  that  bitter  m  the  cup.  To  drink 

that  cup  alone — in  Africa — how  endure?  In  Africa 
there  comes  an  hour  when  the  distrust  and  the  in- 
gratitude of  men — black  men,  sometimes  white  men 
— turn  the  tropic  air  to  winter.  This  is  especially, 
pathetically,  true  of  the  young  missionary  who  first 
encounters  the  defection  of  the  black  Christian,  who 
first  sees  the  lad  he  trained  for  evangelist  turn 
trader,  who  first  sees  the  girl  who  was  to  be  the 
mother  of  new  Africa,  go  wild.  Young  missionaries 
suffer  then,  according  to  their  temperament,  their 
hour  of  disillusion.  And  those  senior  missionaries — 
those  single  souls  chosen  of  God  to  bear  the  solitude 
of  the  third  watch — they  have,  while  the  world 
sleeps,  their  crushing  hours  of  disillusion.  Mackay, 
Coillard,  Livingstone — these  men  of  many  dis- 
illusions— how  did  they  endure — who  was  then 
their  friend?  *"Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,"  says 
Livingstone  to  himself  in  such  an  hour.  And  of  this 
promise  he  writes  in  his  diary — for  a  man  must  talk 
to  himself  when  he  is  in  the  hungry  country — "It 

*  Personal  Life  of  David  Livingstone,  by  W.  Gorden  Blaikie, 
p.  197. 


THE  ^SHITE  MAN  IN  AFRICA  35 

is  the  word  of  a  gentleman  of  the  most  sacred  and 
strictest  honor,  and  there's  an  end  on't."  And  out 
of  the  accumulated  disillusions  of  his  years  Coillard 
writes  the  wonderful  letter*  dated  January  25,  1893. 
His  functions  at  In  the  old  days  it  was  so  that  a  mis- 
the  outposts.  sionary  must  play  every  part — he 
must  preach,  teach  school,  heal  the  sick,  carpenter, 
cobble,  and  tinker.  He  had  need  of  such  a  kit  of  tools 
as  should  make  a  little  world,  and  mend  it.  fTucker, 
coming  upon  the  dead  Mackay's  tools  rusting  in  his 
deserted  workshop  and  the  embers  gray  in  the  forge, 
seemed  to  see  the  very  sign  and  mark  of  that  in- 
defatigable man.  How  many  missionaries  of  his 
generation — and  how  pitifully  less  skilled  than  he — 
were  looked  to  in  their  solitary  persons  to  make  and 
mend  their  black  world. 

I  will  not  be  saying  just,  that  in  the  past  a  mis- 
sionary must  be  Jack  of  all  trades,  and  master,  too, 
for  that  exaction  survives.  It  survives  wherever  the 
white  man  is  one  or  two  at  lonely  outposts.  Search 
the  reports  of  your  missionary  to  your  Board — of 
whatever  denomination  you  may  be — and  you  will 
find  him — on  the  out-stations  in  the  forest  or  in  the 
grass  country  of  Africa.  Be  sure  of  him  that  he  is  all 
things  to  all  needs.  He  is  all  the  doctor,  all  the 
teacher,  all  the  preacher,  the  tribes  about  him  know. 
He  is  all  the  industrial  training  they  will  get,  and  all 
the  agricultural.  His  wife  is  all  the  saviour  of  babies, 
all  the  mothers'  meeting,  all  the  shepherdess  of  girls, 

*  On  the  Threshold  of  Central  Africa,  by  Francois  Coillard,  p.  502. 
t  Eighteen  Years  in  Uganda,  by  Alfred  R.  Tucker,  vol.  I,  p.  71. 


86  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

all  the  protector  and  consoler  of  mourning  women, 
all  the  machinery  of  God's  maternal  intention  that 
is  set  to  light  that  dark  world.  You  need  not  read 
the  marvelous  biographies  of  the  nineteenth-century 
missionaries  to  find  white  men  and  white  women  of 
works  in  Africa,  read  your  mission's  reports  with 
imagination. 

And  of  this  lonely  man,  this  lonely  woman,  these 
who  are  so  driven,  so  constrained,  so  broken  like  the 
loaves  and  the  fishes,  be  sure  that  when  they  are  not 
too  busy  to  count,  they  count.  Not  the  cost,  mind 
you.  They  count  it  "all  joy,"  and  their  one  excite- 
ment is  statistics. 

His  functions  at  And  as  you  read,  give  thanks  for 
central  stations,  t^ig^  tj^^t  there  has  been  an  evolution. 
Not  alone  at  Lovedale,  at  Blantyre,  at  Livingstonia, 
at  Amanzimtote,  at  E!at,  but  at  the  heart  of  every 
great  African  mission  of  every  denomination,  there 
is  the  fact,  or  the  intention,  of  adequate  modern 
equipment.  There  exist  central  stations  that  are  the 
factories  where  are  produced  the  staples  that  are  to 
save  Africa.  At  these  stations  a  white  man  trained 
as  a  teacher  is  placed  in  a  school,  he  is  not  put  to 
mending  broken  legs,  as  I  have  seen  the  school 
teacher  at  lesser  stations  do.  Here  are  hospitals 
with  equipment,  and  here  a  doctor  may  practise 
his  divine  art  and  a  nurse  may  follow  hers;  preachers 
here  need  not  oversee  the  farm  work,  they  preach — 
they  shepherd  the  black  sheep.  At  these  stations, 
as  you  know,  there  are  great  industrial  plants,  great 
clearings  for  the  encouragement  of  agriculture,  wise 


THE  WHITE  MAN  IN  AFRICA  37 

white  men  who  are  mechanics,  who  are  farmers, 

over  large  companies  of  eager  apprentices.  Here  are 

printing    presses.  These    churches,    these    schools, 

these  hospitals,  these  workshops  and  fields,  and  these 

presses,  from  these  are  being  poured  continually  into 

the  backwoods — the  back  waters  of   Africa — that 

bread  of  life  which  is  to  feed  the  hungry  country. 

A  man  or  a  woman,  of  whatever  degree  of  skill  or 

training  in  any  one  of  the  essential  human  crafts, 

who  is  at  work  in  one  of  these  modern  stations  need 

not  lose  himself  or  his  craft.  He  will  find  both  him- 

sel  and  his  craft  put  to  usury. 

„  It  is  at  this  point  that  your  mission- 

His  adventure.  •  i       i  i       • 

ary  so  violently  put  to  usury,  begms 

to  count.  He  begins  to  deal  in  statistics.  There  is 
this  in  common  between  the  man  at  the  outpost  and 
the  man  at  the  station,  they  run  to  statistics.  They 
seem  to  you  who  grew  up  with  them,  perhaps,  who 
went  to  college  with  them,  who  knew  their  training 
and  equipment,  who  saw  them  off  on  the  steamer, 
who  know  their  destination  on  the  map — they  seem 
to  you  to  have  been  somehow  lost.  As  if  in  place  of 
your  man  or  woman,  you  have  nothing  at  all  famil- 
iar, or  at  best  you  have  statistics. 

That  is  because  in  statistics  are  embodied  bis  ad- 
venture. When  that  white  man  who  is  plucked  off 
the  deck  of  a  steamer  by  the  hand  of  Africa  is  a 
missionary,  he  is  launched  upon  adventures,  spiritual 
adventures,  too  big  for  him.  In  that  forest  behind 
that  shifting  wall  of  surf  he  is  to  witness  the  vital 
content  of — how  shall  I  say — certain  spiritual  aphor- 


88  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

isms  let  loose.  From  his  youth  up  he  has  heard  that 
the  Word  is  life,  and  now  he  is  to  hear  that  Word 
thunder  in  strange  tongues,  and  to  find  it  dynamic 
to  the  point  of  violence.  He  holds  the  doctrine  of 
the  new  birth,  and  he  is  to  witness  this  amazing 
fact  multitudinously  reproducing  itself,  the  new 
man,  everywhere  chained  to  the  dead  body  of  his 
sin,  turning  his  new  face  away  from  the  earth  to  the 
shining  of  a  morning  star.  This  white  man  who  has 
been  praying  that  the  Lord's  Kingdom  may  come  is 
to  find  himself  beat  upon  and  bruised  by  the  violence 
of  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom,  deafened  by  the 
shouting  and  the  tumult,  hunted  by  innumerable 
feet  in  every  path,  and  plucked  at  by  the  outstretched 
hands  of  Ethiopia.  This  white  man  has  been  caught 
in  the  cosmic  whirl  of  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  and  his  only  mode  of  expression,  his  only  cry 
out  of  his  wonder  and  his  terror  and  his  new  knowl- 
edge of  the  presence  and  the  power  of  God  is — 
statistics.  No  more  than  that.  A  little  thin  crying 
of  statistics,  a  kind  of  wireless  coming  out  of  the 
forest,  in  the  night,  across  the  line  of  sand  and  the 
line  of  surf  and  the  sea  to  the  gilt  side  of  the  world 
where  the  sun  still  shines,  a  little  thin  crying  of  a 
code  word — statistics. 

*The  stunning  statistics  of  the  Berlin  Missionary 
Society  in  South  Africa,  of  the  Livingstonia  Mission, 


*  In  the  statistics  prepared  for  the  World  Missionary  Con- 
ference, Edinburgh,  1910,  the  Berlin  Missionary  Society  was 
shown  as  having  in  South  Africa  48,360  native  Christians;  the 
Hermannsburg  Missionary  Society,  66,138;  the  Rhenish  Society 


THE  WHITE  MAN  IN  AFRICA  39 

of  the  Moravians  and  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church 
and  the  Church  of  England  in  South  Africa,  of  the 
French  in  Basutoland  and  Barotseland,  of  the 
Wesleyans  and  the  American  Methodists  in  South, 
East  and  West  Africa,  and  the  supreme  statistics  of 
Uganda — these  major  miracles  of  redemption,  and 
the  miracles  of  the  American  missions  in  Egypt  and 
on  the  west  coast,  in  the  Congo  and  on  the  east 
coast,  all  these  and  all  the  other  miracles  of  God's 
blessing  of  African  missions  under  the  British  and 
the  Germans  and  the  Scandanavians  and  the  French 
and  the  Swiss — these  are  all  comprised  in  the  word, 
statistics. 


19,278;  the  Moravians,  19,338;  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church, 
31,270;  the  Church  of  England,  156,059;  the  Paris  Evangelical 
Society  (communicants  only),  17,160;  the  English  Wesleyans 
(communicants  only),  21,233. 

The  United  Free  Church  of  Scotland  for  its  Livingstonia 
Mission  reported  7,513  and  the  Universities'  Mission  to  Central 
Africa  (Anglican)  11,668  Christians  respectively.  The  Church, 
Missionary  Society  had  in  East  Africa,  mostly  in  Uganda,  68,251 
Christians. 

The  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions 
reported  5,374  commimicants  in  South  Africa;  the  American 
Baptist  Foreign  Mission  Society,  4,772  communicants  in  the 
Congo;  the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  2,622  communicants  for  Southern  Central  Africa  and 
Portuguese  East  Africa;  the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  in  the  U.  S.  A.,  1,825  communicants  in 
Kamerun;  and  the  Executive  Committee  of  Foreign  Missions  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  (Southern  Pres- 
byterian), 6,638  communicants  in  the  Congo.  Excepting  where 
commimicants  only  are  given,  the  numbers  reported  represent 
the  total  of  baptized  Christians,  a  more  inclusive  term  than 


40  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

A  code  word.  Be  sure  that  the  white  man  has 
packed  this  code  word  with  ultimate  and  vital 
meanings.  He  thought,  poor  soul,  when  he  pressed 
it  full  of  treasure,  how  the  treasure  would  be  re- 
leased in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  his  tribal  brothers, 
how  the  code  word  would  let  loose  the  thousands  of 
men  and  women  compressed  into  the  statistics, 
to  live  in  the  imaginations  of  the  established  people 
of  God,  to  speak  their  simple  faith  in  our  Lord 
Jesus.  Their  new  thought  of  Him  is  different  from 
our  thought  as  the  fruit  of  one  tree  is  different  from 
another,  their  new  obedience  to  Him  is  broken  and 
mended  and  riveted  with  a  passion  of  inexpert 
effort,  their  love  of  Him  is  curiously  unsullied  by 

"communicants,"  but  not  including  large  numbers  of  unbaptized 
adherents,  many  of  whom  are  under  regular  instruction.  The 
total  of  native  Christian  adherents,  including  baptized  and  un- 
baptized of  all  ages,  for  all  Societies  at  work  in  Africa  (exclusive 
of  the  Mediterranean  and  Red  Sea  littorals)  was  given  at  Edin- 
burgh as  follows:  Western  Africa  (Senegal  to  Nigeria),  248,702; 
Southwest  Africa  (Kamerun  to  German  Southwest  Africa), 
103,201;  South  Africa  (the  British  Union  with  Basutoland  and 
Swaziland),  1,145,326;  Southern  Central  Africa  (five  British 
protectorates),  92,583;  East  Africa  (Portuguese,  German,  British), 
118,107. 

The  statistics  of  baptized  Christians  for  1915  of  the  particular 
societies  mentioned  above  and  for  the  same  areas  there  specific- 
ally designated  in  each  case,  are  as  follows:  Berlin,  60,131;  Her- 
mannsburg,  102,610;  Rhenish,  21,394;  Mora\dans,  21,955; 
Dutch  Reformed,  no  data  available;  Church  of  England,  no  data 
available;  Paris  Evangelical  (communicants  only),  22,233; 
Wesleyans  (communicants  only),  18,017;  United  Free  Church  of 
Scotland,  19,042;  Universities'  Mission,  23,072;  Church  Mission- 
ary Society,    101,688;  American  Board   (communicants  only). 


MAN  SITTING  ON  A  CALL  DRUM  AND  MAN 
LACING  UP  A  DANCE  DRUM 


THE  WHITE  MAN  IN  AFRICA  41 

the  moral  slime  of  their  past  and  their  present,  and 
apprehends  Him  as  person  and  altogether  lovely. 
Some  such  e£Pect  of  the  code  word  the  white  man 
expects,  and  this  little  book  is  an  effort  to  release  the 
meaning  of  his  pregnant  statistics.  For  this  has 
been  written  the  following  account  of  a  tribe  and  a 
neighborhood  under  the  impact  of  the  Word  of  God. 
"The  Christians  of  Kungulu,"  said  a  Bulu  woman  to 
me  once,  "are  as  many  as  water."  And  another  said, 
"You  do  not  know  this  neighborhood  yet;  in  your 
eyes  the  people  are  as  grass,  but  you  will  certainly 
know  them  in  the  times  to  come — each  by  name!" 
These  were  Bulu  statistics,  and  here,  too,  was  the 
formula  by  which  they  might  be  transmuted  into 
terms  of  human  understanding  and  love. 


6,840;  American  Baptists  (communicants  only),  4,801;  Methodist 
Episcopal  (communicants  only),  2,335;  Northern  Presbyterians 
(conmiunicants  only),  8,334;  Southern  Presbyterians  (communi- 
cants only),  13,216. 

No  attempt  has  been  made  in  this  connection  to  list  all  societies 
at  work  in  pagan  Africa,  nor  to  summarize  for  any  one  society 
all  the  work  done  by  it  in  all  of  Africa.  The  eflFort  has  been  made 
only  to  give  statistics  by  areas  of  the  work  of  the  major  agencies, 
and  in  connection  with  the  Edinbiu-gh  statistics  the  totals  for 
all  societies  by  areas.  In  the  preparation  of  this  note,  the  resources 
of  the  Missionary  Research  Library,  25  Madison  Avenue,  New 
York  City,  have  been  drawn  upon. 


42  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

A  MISSION  STATION  IN  1798 
(Extract  from  a  letter  of  the  above  date) 

Our  object  this  morning  was  to  see  those  humble  missionaries 
who,  sent  by  the  Moravian  Church  about  seven  years  ago,  have 
made  so  great  a  progress  in  converting  the  Hottentots  to  Chris- 
tianity. I  had  heard  much  of  them,  and  I  desired  with  my  own 
eyes  to  see  what  sort  of  people  Hottentots  are  when  collected 
together  in  such  an  extensive  Kraal  as  that  which  surrounds  the 
settlement  of  the  fathers. 

Hitherto  I  had  only  seen  the  servants  of  the  farmers  kept  to 
hard  work  and  humiliatiiig  subjection.  We  travelled  on  over 
rough  ground,  and  after  about  four  hours  arrived  at  the  base  of 
the  Baviaan  and  Boscheman's  Kloofs,  where  the  settlement  was. 
Each  step  we  now  took  we  found  a  bit  of  grass  or  a  few  cattle,  a 
Kraal  or  a  hut,  a  cornfield,  a  little  garden — a  general  look  of  peace 
and  prosperity,  which  seemed  to  me  the  tacit  manna  of  the 
Almighty  showered  down  upon  His  children. 

The  fathers,  of  whom  there  were  three,  came  out  to  meet  us  in 
their  working  jackets,  each  man  being  employed  in  following  the 
business  of  his  original  profession — miller,  smith,  carpenter  and 
tailor  in  one.  They  told  us  that  they  were  sent  by  the  Moravian 
Church  in  Germany;  that  their  object  was  to  convert  the  Hotten- 
tots, render  them  industrious,  religious  and  happy;  that  they 
had  spent  some  time  in  looking  out  for  a  proper  situation,  shel- 
tered, of  a  good  soil  and  near  the  water;  that  they  found  it  here 
and  procured  some  Hottentots  to  assist  them  in  the  beginning  of 
the  work,  and  by  their  treatment  of  them  had  gradually  en- 
couraged more  to  creep  around  them. 

"This  gate,"  said  one  of  the  fathers,  "and  all  the  iron  work 
is  my  broeder's  making.  The  other  two  had  raised  the  walls, 
which  were  of  clay  mixed  with  stone.  The  tailor  had  taught  the 
Hottentot  women  to  make  rush  mats  of  a  sort  of  reed,  with  which 
the  floor  of  the  church  was  covered.  They  asked  us  to  step  in 
and  see  the  church;  we  found  it  about  forty  feet  long  and  twenty 
broad;  the  pulpit  was  a  platform  raised  only  a  few  steps  above 
the  ground,  and  matted  with  some  rushes,  on  which  were  three 
chairs  and  a  small  table  on  which  was  the  Bible. 


THE  WHITE  MAN  IN  AFRICA  48 

I  regretted  very  much  that  it  was  not  Sunday — then  I  should 
have  found  the  whole  community,  about  three  hundred  Hotten- 
tots, assembled  to  Divine  worship. 

The  father  said  I  should  still  see  them,  as  at  sunset  every  day, 
when  business  was  over,  there  were  prayers.  Presently  the  church 
bell  was  a-ringing,  and  we  begged  leave  to  make  part  of  the  con- 
gregation. I  doubt  much  whether  I  should  have  entered  St.  Peter's 
at  Rome,  with  the  triple  crown,  with  a  more  devout  impression 
of  the  Deity  and  His  presence  than  I  felt  in  this  little  church  of  a 
few  feet  square,  where  the  simple  disciples  of  Christianity, 
dressed  in  the  skins  of  animals,  knew  no  purple  or  fine  linen,  no 
pride  or  hypocrisy.  I  felt  as  if  I  was  creeping  back  seventeen 
hundred  years  and  heard  from  the  rude  and  inspired  lips  of 
Evangelists  the  simple  sacred  words  of  wisdom  and  purity.  The 
service  began  with  a  Presbyterian  form  of  psalm;  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  Hottentots  joined  in  the  twenty-third  psalm 
in  a  tone  so  sweet  and  loud,  so  chaste  and  true,  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  hear  it  without  being  surprised.  The  fathers,  who  were 
the  sole  music-masters,  sang  in  their  deep-toned  bass  along  with 
them,  and  the  harmony  was  excellent.  This  over,  the  miller 
took  a  portion  of  the  Scripture,  and  expounded  it  as  he  went  along. 
The  father's  discourse  was  short,  and  the  tone  of  his  voice  even 
and  natural,  and  when  he  used  the  words,  as  he  often  did,  Myne 
lieve  vriende,  my  beloved  friends,  I  felt  that  he  thought  they  were 
all  his  children. 

We  made  a  most  excellent  supper,  and  the  fathers  ate  with  us, 
I  must  say  they  had  excellent  appetites — they  urged  one  another 
on,  "Broeder  eat  this"  and  "Broeder  take  another  slice,"  and 
"Ledi,  ask  him,  he  likes  it."  This  was  apropos  of  one  of  our  cold 
hams,  for  they  had  not  tasted  one  since  they  left  Germany,  they 
said.  So,  of  course,  we  left  what  remained  of  it  for  them.  Our 
cask  of  Madeira  and  our  gin  were  next  produced,  and  they  gladly 
partook  of  it,  as  it  was  a  day  of  fete. 

They  had  accustomed  themselves  to  do  quite  without  wine, 
and  even  without  meat,  living  on  the  simplest  fare.  Their  posi- 
tion, they  told  us,  was  one  of  great  danger,  for  the  Boers  disliked 
them  for  having  taken  the  Hottentots  away  from  the  necessity 


44  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

of  laborious  servitude  and  over  and  over  again,  they  told  us,  the 
farmers  had  made  plots  to  murder  them,  the  last  plot,  which  was 
to  shoot  them  with  poisoned  arrows  they  discovered  and  were 
able  to  prevent. 

Mr.  Barnard  was  very  much  interested  in  this,  and  promised 
to  speak  to  the  Governor  to  see  what  was  best  to  be  done  for  their 
security.  We  spent  the  night  in  a  small  sitting-room  on  a  couple 
of  cane  sofas  very  comfortably. 

—Lady  Anne  Barnard,  South  Africa  a  Century  Ago,  p.  167, 
Smith  Elder  &  Co. 

THE  WHITE  MAN'S  TOWN 

The  place  will  never  be  picturesque;  our  immense  bare  plain, 
the  bed  of  a  dried-up  lake,  with  its  miry  swamps,  will  never  be  a 
Swiss  canton,  nor  even  a  Basuto-land.  We  must  just  make  the 
best'of  it.  But  SefiJa  may  become  habitable,  and  one  may  live 
happily  there. 

While  drainage  works  are  being  actively  carried  on  in  the  dale, 
we  have  begimi  to  clear  away  the  thickets,  and  already  on  the 
plateau,  where  formerly  sorcerers  were  burnt  alive,  four  little 
European  buildings  are  rising,  which  are  the  great  wonder  of  the 
country.  They  are  very  modest,  just  temporary  cabins  of  stakes 
and  reeds,  which  the  termites  are  already  eating  out. 

But  they  have  little  windows,  light  and  air.  You  would  not 
believe  the  interest  we  have  taken  in  setting  them  up,  plastering 
them,  and  making  the  most  of  what  we  have  to  furnish  them 
cosily.  Is  it  not  an  emblem  of  life,  which  we  know  to  be  so  short, 
and  which  we  strive  to  make  so  fair? 

— F.  Coilkrd,  On  Uie  Threshold  of  Central  Africa,  p.  290. 
American  Tract  Society,  1903. 


THE  WHITE  MAN  IN  AFRICA  45 

AFRICAN  TRAVEL 

In  the  hot  season  if  you  are  wise,  you  will  do  most  of  your 
travelling  in  the  night  or  the  very  early  morning.  Even  without 
a  moon  you  can  find  your  way  along  the  path.  And  then  you  have 
the  finest  moments  of  the  day,  and  of  the  year,  when  the  dawn 
begins  to  break.  You  will  hear  the  first  cock-crow  in  the  villages 
that  lie  around,  but  are  invisible  in  the  dark,  and  you  will  know  it 
will  not  be  long  before  the  land  you  travel  through  becomes 
defined.  Then  comes  the  second  cock-crow,  and  you  are  conscious 
of  an  almost  imperceptible  brightening. 

The  trees  are  full  of  the  singing  of  birds.  A  grey  light  is  slowly 
revealing  the  outlines  of  the  hills,  then  bright  red  splashes  outline 
the  faint  clouds  and  the  whole  world  bursts  into  life.  How  the 
men  shout  and  sing  in  the  joy  of  the  morning.  For  hours  they 
have  been  marching  silently,  doggedly,  but  now  their  bodies 
are  quivering  with  energy. 

You  pass  near  the  Kraal  gate  of  a  village  where  some  men  are 
sitting  over  a  very  little  fire  with  sleepy,  unwashed  faces,  and 
with  their  backs  bared  to  the  first  rays  of  the  sun.  But  the  women 
are  already  vigorously  pounding  their  maize,  and  boys  are  lifting 
the  logs  which  close  the  Kraa!  gate,  that  they  may  milk  the  cows 
into  the  wooden  pails  before  driving  them  out  to  pasture.  And, 
unless  thoroughly  unwell,  you  will  smile  to  yourself  and  declare 
this  is  the  best  life  that  any  man  can  live,  and  the  morning  atmos- 
phere of  Africa  is  more  sparkling  than  champagne. 

But,  of  course,  you  are  not  always  travelling  in  the  delicious 
morning.  You  must  take  the  bitter  with  the  sweet,  and  there 
are  days  when  touring  is  a  disagreeable  enough  duty.  Especially 
is  this  so  in  the  rains.  You  will  now  try  to  place  your  work  so 
that  all  travel  is  over  before  midday  and  you  are  safely  in  camp 
before  the  tropical  showers  burst,  for  if  you  are  caught  in  these 
downpours  no  waterproof  yet  invented  will  keep  you  dry.  And 
it  is  not  pleasant  to  find  not  only  your  clothes  wringing  wet,  but 
the  bedding  also  and  all  your  belongings. 

— Donald   Fraser,    Winning  a  Primitive   PMple,   p.   63, 
E.  P.  Button  &  Co.,  1914. 


46  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

QUESTIONS  TO  ACCOMPANY  CHAPTER  I. 

1.  "SMiere  is  Africa? 

2.  WTiere  is  the  African  field  of  your  own  denomination? 

3.  When  was  it  established? 

4.  \Miat  is  the  nature  of  the  climate? 

5.  When  was  the  seaboard  of  your  African  field  discovered 
and  by  whom? 

6.  ^Mien  was  the  interior  of  your  African  field  first  visited 
and  by  whom? 

7.  Under  what  government  is  it  now  held? 

8.  How  many  stations  have  you  now? 

9.  Where  are  they? 

10.  \Mien  were  these  stations  established? 

11.  How  did  your  missionary  reach  his  field  in  the  past?  And 
now? 

12.  How  did  you  house  your  missionary  in  the  past?  And  now? 

13.  What  is  the  health  record  of  your  mission  as  compared 
with  the  early  days? 

14.  What  is  the  population  of  the  largest  white  man's  settle- 
ment (not  missionary)  in  the  neighborhood  of  your  mission? 
(See  encyclopaedia.) 

15.  How  are  you  equipped  for  Ministers?  Doctors?  Teachers? 

16.  Have  you  an  industrial  or  agricultural  work? 

17.  What  is  the  part  of  the  single  woman  in  your  mission? 

18.  How  often  do  your  missionaries  receive  mail? 

19.  Do  you  in  your  local  church  write  to  or  receive  letters  from 
any  African  missionary? 

20.  How  long  may  the  children  of  your  missionaries  remain 
on  the  field  and  what  dispMisition  is  made  of  them  at  home? 


BIBLE  READING  AND  PRAYER 
FOR  CHAPTER  II. 

Isaiah     29:8-12     inclusive 
Romans  10: 11-15  inclusive 


Prayer 

ALMIGHTY  God,  who  hast  taught  us  to 
make  intercession  for  all  men:  We  pray  not 
only  for  ourselves  here  present,  but  we  be- 
seech Thee  also  to  bring  all  such  as  are  yet  ignorant, 
from  the  miserable  captivity  of  error  to  the  pure 
understanding  of  Thy  heavenly  truth:  that  we  all, 
with  one  consent  and  unity  of  mind,  may  worship 
Thee,  our  only  God  and  Saviour:  that  all  Thy  minis- 
ters and  people  may  both  in  their  life  and  doctrine 
be  found  faithful:  and  that,  by  them,  all  poor  sheep 
which  wander  and  go  astray,  may  be  gathered  and 
brought  home  to  Thy  fold." 

— John  Knox's  Liturgy  {abbreviated). 


CHAPTER  n. 


THE   BULU 


A  tribe  of  The  tribes  of  our  neighborhood  belong 

the  Bantu.  ^q  h^q  Bantu  race.  If,  as  is  supposed 

at  this  writing  to  be  the  case,  the  Bantu-speaking 
tribes  occupy  the  southern  half  of  Africa  from  the 
7th  degree  north  of  the  equator,  our  neighborhood 
is  in  the  northern  limit  of  their  present  occupancy. 
They  are  migratory;  their  drift  has  been  south  and 
west  from  the  heart  of  Central  Africa.  *Sir  Harry 
Johnston  fixes  the  approximate  date  at  which  the 
Bantu  negro  left  his  primal  home  as  not  more  than 
two  thousand  years  ago,  and  notes  that  he  has 
overrun  in  his  migrations  the  forest  negro,  the 
Nilotic  negro,  the  Hottentot  and  the  Bushman. 
A  Bantu  The  Bantu  is  betrayed  entirely  by 

speech.  j^jg  speech.     He  has  no  history  except 

as  traced  and  exhibited  in  his  speech;  he  has  no 
physical  distinction  or  type — only  a  typical  lan- 
guage, and  no  cohesion  except  the  cohesion  of  Ian-, 
guage. 

He  has  wandered  spear  in  hand  and  the  spotted 
skin  of  a  leopard  on  his  shoulder,  not  in  a  horde  but 
in  broken  companies — through  the  forests  and  in  the 

*  Article  on  Bantu  Languages,  Encyclopaedia  Britannica, 
11th  edition.  ■ 


50  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

grass  countries  of  Africa — these  two  thousand  years. 
At  the  crossings  of  rivers  tribes  have  divided,  clans 
have  divided,  even  families  have  divided  as  the 
bolder  members  have  dared  to  make  a  crossing 
which  the  weaker  ones  have  evaded;  until  today 
there  are  unnumbered  tribes,  speaking  unnumbered 
dialects,  differentiated  by  local  customs,  and 
governed  in  minor  matters  by  dissimilar  traditions. 
They  see  each  other  as  through  a  glass,  darkly. 
But  the  white  man  is  a  mighty  hunter  and  has 
tracked  them  to  many  a  secret  lair  by  his  instinct 
for  the  spoken  word.  By  him  they,  who  have  no  care 
beyond  the  tribe,  are  discerned  as  a  race  and  are 
endowed  with  a  history;  and  this  constructive  work 
is  based  not  upon  a  written  word,  or  a  system  of 
hieroglyphics,  but  upon  a  spoken  word.  None  of 
them  but  carried  in  those  long  wanderings  a  word — 
a  construction — an  idiom — ^that  should  betray 
them,  the  root  of  them,  to  the  wise  white  man.  For 
example.  Sir  Harry  Johnston  identifies  them  by 
their  word  for  hen — as  any  of  you  may  read  in  his 
article  upon  Bantu  languages  in  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannica.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  tribes  of  our 
neighborhood  use  a  modified  form  of  this  password — 
myself,  I  have  used  in  common  speech  this  clue  to 
long  wanderings,  this  symbol  of  a  blood-bond,  this 
key  to  a  long-forgotten  door. 

Bulu  The  Bantu  in  Western  Africa  have 

migrations.  been  less  exposed  to  the  Arab  in- 

fluence which  has  from  time  immemorial  modified 
the  Bantu  tribes  to  the  east.  Sir  Harry  Johnston 


THE  BULU  51 

says  that  the  culture  most  characteristically  African 
must  be  sought  on  the  other  (the  west)  side.  "It 
is  therefore  in  the  forests  of  the  Congo  and  among 
the  lagoons  and  estuaries  of  the  Guinea  Coast  that 
this  earlier  culture  will  most  probably  be  found." 

In  this  book,  which  is  one  about  a  neighborhood 
and  a  tribe,  there  cannot  be  more  of  such  high  racial 
matters.  In  our  neighborhood  or  within  our  sphere 
of  influence  there  are  more  than  ten  tribes,  but  we 
will  be  speaking  specifically  of  the  Bulu,  one  of  the 
Fang  divisions  of  the  Bantu-speaking  people.  This 
is  a  tribe  whose  migration  nears  the  coast.  Other 
Fang  tribes  have  reached  the  coast — and  the  ulti- 
mate barrier  of  the  sea. 

You  must  not  think  of  our  migrations  as  an  agita- 
tion or  a  definite  campaign.  There  is  no  sense  of  en- 
campment in  the  little  brown  villages  strung  on  the 
thread  of  the  forest  paths.  Only  this:  ask  my  aged 
Bulu  where  "his  father  bore  him";  and  he  will  say 
that  he  was  born  in  a  town  toward  the  rising  sun, 
beyond  a  river  so  many  days'  journey  inland, 
deserted  now,  he  will  tell  you.  Ask  him  where  he, 
himself  lived  when  he  married  his  first  wife,  and 
he  will  tell  you  of  a  clearing  deserted  now,  or  oc- 
cupied by  another  tribe — a  lesser  number  of  days' 
journey  to  the  east.  Ask  of  the  whereabouts  of  the 
young  of  his  clan,  and  you  will  find  them  making 
clearings  along  the  path  toward  the  sea.  Westward 
and  a  little  south  of  west  drift  the  Bulu,  the  tribe 
of  our  neighborhood. 


52  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

The  Bulu  people  are  not  among  the 
Bulu  speech.  r-      i-  o 

flower  of  the  Bantu.  Sir  Harry  John- 
ston will  tell  you  of  the  Fang  that  they  speak  a  de- 
based form  of  their  racial  language.  But  that  lan- 
guage— with  its  idiom,  its  irony,  its  aptness  at  self- 
defense,  its  richness  in  the  expression  of  sense  per- 
ception,— fits  the  Bulu  like  their  skin.  The  staccato 
music  of  the  Bulu  tongue  is  an  adequate  expression 
of  the  Bulu  mind.  And  the  man  of  this  neighbor- 
hood and  of  this  dialect  has  a  pride  in  his  colloquial- 
isms. Bulu  friends  of  mine  have  grieved  to  hear  my 
Bulu  corrupted  by  a  journey  among  the  tribes  to 
the  north — where  the  letter  g  fills  the  pause  of 
our  local  elision,  and  have  corrected  my  accent  after 
a  journey  among  tribes  to  the  south — where  the 
letter  h  is  articulate  in  the  elision  decreed  by  the 
Bulu.  "We  Bulu,"  they  have  reproached  me, 
"speak  the  real  talk, — don't  spoil  it!"  and  those  who 
have  seen  the  Word  of  God  re-dress  itself  in  the 
Bulu,  or — I  am  thinking — in  any  dialect  of  the 
Bantu,  have  agreed  that  it  is  indeed  a  "real  talk," 
not  to  be  lightly  spoiled.  It  is  not  for  nothing  that 
the  Bantu  negro  has  conserved  in  long  wanderings 
the  treasure  of  his  unique  speech. 
Three  And  if  this  negro  has  been  linguis- 

racial  ideas.  tically    consistent    along    so    many 

paths  of  the  grass  country  and  the  forest  country 
and  the  beach,  he  has  been  consistent,  too,  in  his 
subjection  to  three  great  racial  ideas:  he  has  every- 
where been  dominated  by  the  lust  of  gain,  the  lust 
of  women,  and  the  yoke  of  fetish.  Gain  and  women 


THE  BULU  53 

and  fetish — it  is  the  old  trilogy  of  the  world,  the 
flesh,  and  the  devil.  Naked  and  unashamed  this 
trio  has  walked  in  all  the  caravans  of  all  the  wan- 
derers of  these  age-old  migrations  until  this  day, 
when  the  supreme  religious  adventures  of  the  Bantu 
have  to  do  with  the  impact  of  the  things  of  God 
upon  the  "things  of  goods,"  the  "things  of  women" 
and  the  "things  of  fetish." 

The  Bulu  Our  Bulu,  the  man,  is  first  and  always 

a  master.  ^  master.  The  white  man  does  not 

think  of  him  so,  but  so  does  the  Bulu  and  so  per- 
haps does  the  Bantu  in  general  think  of  himself. 
In  every  tribal  relation  he  is,  or  he  purposes  to  be, 
a  master.  He  dresses  to  the  part,  beach  or  bush,  and 
the  details  of  his  attire  (that  vary  with  time  and 
place)  have  an  intentional  and  recognized  signifi- 
cance. That  passer-by,  netted  in  tattoo,  braceleted 
with  ivory  or  with  brass,  armed  with  a  spear,  and 
followed  by  a  retinue  of  arrogant  young  bucks,  is  in 
his  degree  a  master.  As  such  he  moves,  he  adver- 
tises his  function  in  his  posture.  Whether  he  be 
young  and  beautiful,  or  old  and  fat  as  headmen  often 
are;  whether  he  be  hung  with  the  traditional  leopard- 
skin  or  coated  in  a  white  man's  cast-off  uniform; 
whether  he  be  a  lesser  headman  over  an  obscure 
village,  or  a  personage  of  intertribal  fame  and  great 
possessions,  he  speaks  and  moves  as  master.  And 
this  he  is  by  merit — the  merit  of  wisdom  in  the 
things  of  women,  the  things  of  goods,  and  the  things 
of  fetish.  I  think  of  major  headmen  known  to  me, 
and  some  inherited  from  their  fathers,  and  some 


54  AN  AJ'RICAN  TRAIL 

crept  up  as  parvenus  do,  but  not  one  could  hold  his 

own  among  the  true  Bulu  if  he  were  not  versed  in 

the  triple  lore  of  women  and  goods  and  fetish, 

_.  ^  And  if  he  dresses  the  part,  so  does  he 

His  town.  r-       ' 

build  his  town  to  the  part.  The  two 

parallel  rows  of  huts  with  the  clearing  between: 

these  are  the  houses  of  the  women — the  many  women 

owned  by  the  headman,  the  lesser — how  shall  I  say — 

flocks  or  herds,  owned  by  his  town-brothers,  and 

the  ewe  lambs  owned  by  the  younger  men,  or  the 

less  successful,  or  the  man  whose  wives  always  run 

away.  And  at  either  end  of  the  clearing,  across  the 

one  and  the  other  opening  of  the  commons,  the 

palaver  houses — the  great  houses  where  the  men 

of  the  village  sit,  where  they  eat,  where  they  buy  and 

sell  women  and  ivory — the  one  with  the  other.  Big 

towns  and  little  towns,  villages  of  ten  houses  and 

great  settlements  of  two  hundred,  the  huts  of  the 

Bulu  are  so  disposed;  the  little  bark  huts,  eight  by 

twenty,  or  ten  by  thirty,  thatched  with  leaves,  are 

built  in  rows  with  the  commons  between;  and  at  the 

entrance  of  the  town  the  palaver  house  rises  higher, 

longer,  wider,  but  built  of  bark  like  the  little  huts, 

and  thatched  with  leaves.  Be  sure  that  the  masters 

sit  in  the  cool  brown  shade  of  the  palaver  houses, 

with  their  eyes  upon  their  own.  It  is  for  this  that  the 

palaver  house  is  so  placed  in  the  village. 

_.        ,  And  if  they  dress  the  part  of  masters, 

His  custom.  1 ,     .  ,        ,  1 

and  build  to  the  part,  they  express  the 

part.  Our  Bulu  is  ruthless  and  cruel,  he  is  dignified 

and  courteous  and  hospitable,  and  this  because  he  is 


THE  BCLU  55 

a  master.  The  town  is  his  as  Jdeadman,  or  he  has, 

as  town-brother  of  the  headman,  his  portion  in 

authority.  An  authorized  guest  will  be  welcomed, 

fed,  and  detained,  courteously  and  with  dignity. 

"Before  we  knew  the  white  man,"  said  old  Minkoe 

Ntem  to  me,  "we  knew  friendship  and  the  things 

of  friendship." 

And  in  years  of  contsict  with  many  tribes  of  the 

beach  and  the  bush  I  have  met  with  how  many  of  the 

things  of  friendship;  and  with  discourtesy  I  have 

met  but  once  and  that  from  a  negligible  source.  I 

see  in  my  heart  old  Mbite'e  Kumbale,  master  of 

one  hundred  and  eighty  women  and  for  unnumbered 

years  headman  of  his  village,  sitting  of  a  morning 

in  the  brown  gloom  of  his  great  old  palaver  house, 

stripping  long  ribbons  from  green  reeds,  and  looking 

curiously  wise,   curiously   maternal — and   like  the 

great  god  Pan.  To  the  little  Bulu  pipings  of  the 

white  woman  he  lent  a  courteous  ear,  speaking  of 

his  past,  when  that  seemed  to  please  her,  and  polite 

to    whatever    idiosyncrasy    of    his    guest.  His  long 

village  slept  in  the  morning  sun;  his  able-bodied 

women  were  away  in  their  gardens;  their  old  and 

wise  and  cruel  master  was  at  leisure  for  the  a.menities. 

_.         , .  For  he  is  a  cruel  old  man.  The  Bantu 

His  cruelties. 

men    are    cruel    because  they    are 

masters.  I  will  not  be  speaking  of  cannibalism, 
though  it  exists  among  the  Bantu  of  our  neighbor- 
hood, in  some  tribes  not  at  all,  in  some  tribes  hardly 
at  all,  in  other  tribes  to  an  appreciable  degree — as 
among  the  Yebekolo,  of  whose  headmen  five  were 


66  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

executed  by  the  German  government  in  one  year 
on  the  ground  that  they  had  fostered  cannibalism. 
Of  this  vice  I  will  not  be  speaking  at  length  because, 
however  interesting  it  is  to  the  white  man  (and  it 
seems  to  possess  a  peculiar  fascination),  or  how- 
ever dark  a  shade  it  has  cast  upon  the  Bantu  past, — 
and  does  still  cast  upon  the  Bantu  present, — that 
shadow  is  in  the  main  upon  the  past;  the  vice  is  a 
hidden  and  a  vanishing  shame.*  It  is  a  thing  quick 
to  disappear  among  those  tribes  which  come  under 
the  observation  of  the  white  man.  Of  all  the  vices 
of  the  negro  this  most  hideous  vice  least  resists  its 
doom,  and  is  a  thing  remembered  with  shame  long 
before  lesser  vices,  lesser  cruelties,  lesser  obscenities 
give  way. 

The  cruelties,  the  vices,  the  obscenities  of  the 
Bantu — there  might  be  a  book  about  these,  and 
there  have  been  books.  If  this  book  fails  to  do 
justice  to  these  terrible  realities  there  are  others 
which  may  be  consulted.  These  horrors  bulk  large 
in  the  history  of  every  mission.  Read  in  the  archives 
of  the  American  Mission  to  the  Zulu  of  the  horrors 
witnessed  by  the  pioneers  of  that  mission  on  a  day 
of  February,  1838. f  Read  of  the  happenings  wit- 
nessed by  Livingstone  among  the  Barotse  in  the 
summer  days  of  1853.  Read  in  the  accounts  of 
Grenfell,    of   Bentley,    of   Elmslie,    of   Nassau,    of 

*  There  has  been  a  marked  increase  in  cannibalism  among  the 
tribes  addicted  to  it,  since  the  beginning  of  the  war. 

t  Noted  in  A  History  of  Christian  Missions  in  South  Africa, 
by  J.  du  Plessis,  p.  226. 


VILLAGE  SCHOOL  IN  KA.MERUN  INTERIOR 


PASTOR  OF  A  BEACH  CHURCH  AND  HIS  FAMILY,  KAMERUN 
This  church  was  built  by  the  congregation  and  is  in  part  of  cement 


THE  BULU  57 

Crawford,  of  any  African  pioneer — the  terrible 
records  of  horror  and  shame. 

This  book  is  an  attempt  to  depict  among  the  Bulu 
the  "new  things." 

The  Bulu  ^^  ^^  ^^^  custom  to  think  of  the  Bantu 

master's  as  childlike:  he  so  speaks  of  himself 

abnegation.  ^^  ^^^  white  man  and  to  the  white 

man  he  so  seems.  His  limitations  are  more  obvious 
than  the  secret  trend  of  his  nature.  But  the  Spirit 
of  God  takes  account  of  this  element  of  his  power  and 
of  his  weakness — that  he  is  a  master.  I  think  that 
this  is  so.  In  how  many  palaver  houses  where  the 
masters  sit,  their  eyes  upon  the  sunstruck  street  of 
the  village,  supreme  abnegations  are  taking  place. 
How  many  men,  great  in  their  tribe,  rich  in  the 
sleek  bodies  of  women,  wise  in  the  dark  secrets  of 
their  race,  have  stripped  themselves  of  the  things 
of  this  world,  and  an  exceedingly  precious  weight  of 
glory — have  bent  their  necks  to  the  yoke  of  the  ten 
commandments,  and  by  the  Spirit  call  Jesus,  Lord! 
I  have  seen  a  Bulu  headman,  a  leopard  skin  hanging 
from  his  shoulders,  go  to  do  obeisance  to  a  white  man 
who  was  his  governor.  And  arrogance  walked  with 
him  upon  that  enforced  journey  until  timidity — 
that  emanation  from  the  presence  of  the  white  man — 
should  strike  it  down.  And  I  have  seen  three  brothers 
of  this  headman,  any  one  of  whom  might  have  been 
his  successor,  pass  the  broken  bread  at  the  com- 
munion service — the  servants  "with  one  heart"  of  a 
common  Lord.  The  mark  of  His  yoke  was  upon  each 
of  these  young  men,  as  upon  how  many  others  of 


8S  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

their  race,  who  become  for  His  sake  poor,  and  have 
laid  aside  their  beautiful  and  terrible  arrogance  for 
the  garments  of  humility.  Our  racial  prejudices  and 
the  standards  of  civilization  may  blind  us  in  this 
present  life  to  the  coming  of  many  masters  to  the 
brightness  of  our  Lord's  rising.  These  poor  bodies 
laced  in  tattoo,  these  poor  black  hands  that  num- 
ber the  things  of  the  world  on  their  ten  fingers, — 
these  bring  a  kingly  oil  in  the  broken  boxes  of  their 
abnegation. 

"I  am  Nkolenden,"  says  an  old  headman  to  me, 
"once  the  owner  of  many  women,  a  glorious  person, 
now  a  servant  of  God.  I  will  beat  the  drum  for  the 
service."  And  so,  on  that  Sabbath  morning  he  did; 
a  fantastic  figure,  not  ignoble,  in  a  loin  cloth  and  a 
brass-buttoned  coat  cast  ojff  by  an  army  officer. 
Himself  he  beat  the  great  call  drum,  his  coat  tails 
flying,  hard  at  work  in  the  familiar  frenzy — a 
figure  for  the  common  herd  to  gape  upon.  The  head- 
men in  our  neighborhood  have  no  great  possessions; 
they  are  among  the  lesser  fry  of  African  headmen, 
with  no  more  than  a  local  fame.  To  such  an  one  as 
Mackay's  Mtesa,  or  the  glorious  Khama,  or  Chaka 
of  the  Ngoni,  to  whose  activities  in  the  early  part  of 
the  nineteenth  century  over  a  milUon  enemies  owed 
their  death — to  such  as  these  the  greatest  of  our 
headmen  is  "as  the  little  finger  to  the  thumb."  But 
our  neighborhood  is  all  their  world,  and  the  heart 
of  a  headman  is  a  headman's  heart.  Nkolenden 
saw  himself  a  king,  and  his  menial  act  was  between 
him  and  God,  a  symbol  and  a  surrender. 


THE  BULU  69 

Bulu  womaa  And  if  tbie  Bantu  is  master  his  woman 
»  slave.  is  slave.     She  is  slave  to  the  Bantu 

triple  obsession  of  goods  and  sex  and  fetish.  "A 
girl,"  says  the  Bulu  proverb  at  her  birth,  "is  goods." 
She  may  be,  among  certain  tribes,  the  subject  of  a 
tentative  bargain  before  she  is  born.  "A  girl  is  not 
knov/n,"  says  another  proverb,  "till  the  day  of  her 
dowry." 

The  things  Ask  of  that  little  nine-year-old,  who 

of  marriage.  jg  not  yet  tattooed,  whose  young  head 

is  shaved  in  designs — the  head-dress  of  the  little  girl 
— whose  sleek  body  is  belted  with  beads,  tailed  with 
dried  grasses  and  aproned  with  leaves,  ask  of  that 
childish  creature,  "Who  is  giving  goods  on  you?" 
and  she  will  know.  How  many  goats  have  been 
given,  how  many  dogs  and  dog-bells,  how  many 
sheets  of  brass,  and  whether  an  ivory.  Or  if  she  is 
to  be  given  in  exchange  for  another  woman, — a  wife 
for  her  father,  or  a  little  girl  for  her  brother  who 
must  be  set  up  in  the  world, — she  will  know  that. 
The  name  of  her  tentative  master  she  will  know,  who 
comes  to  consider  his  bargain  from  time  to  time. 
There  he  will  sit  in  the  palaver  house  with  her  father. 
There  will  be  long  talk  of  dowry,  arguments  for  more 
or  less.  The  little  girl  comes  in  out  of  the  sun-smitten 
street  with  food  that  her  mother  has  cooked  for  her 
father  and  his  guest, — a  peanut  porridge  steamed  in  a 
great  leaf,  a  roll  of  cassava  bread,  mashed  plantains. 
She  will  put  her  wooden  tray  at  the  feet  of  her 
masters.  She  is  a  precocious  child,  born  to  the 
language  of  sex.  If  the  buyer  is  old  she  will  hate  him. 


60  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

She  need  make  no  secret  of  this,  she  may  tell  whom 
she  pleases  that,  having  "come  to  her  eyes,"  she  hates 
the  man  who  buys  her.  All  but  her  mother  will  laugh 
at  the  venom  of  the  little  tongue,  the  heavings  of  the 
little  chest.  And  the  day  when  her  master  brings 
the  ivory,  or  the  woman,  or  the  last  articles  of  barter, 
that  day  there  will  be  a  feast  in  her  father's  town 
and  the  songs  of  marriage.  If  the  little  girl  weeps — 
why,  so  they  always  do,  the  hearts  of  children  are 
thus.  And  in  the  evening  when  the  sun  goes  down 
the  path  to  its  setting  and  she  moves  away  in  the 
caravan  of  her  husband's  people,  you  will  not  ask 
which  of  the  children  in  that  caravan  is  the  little 
bride;  you  will  know  because  she  weeps. 

In  her  husband's  town  they  will  be  dancing  the 
marriage  dances,  they  will  be  singing  the  songs  of 
marriage.  Her  husband's  kin  will  be  singing  little 
songs  of  mocking: 

"There  is  a  little  goat  capering  in  the  clearing — 
A  neglect  of  cooking, 
A  neglect  of  work! 
There  is  a  little  kid  capering  in  the  clearing!" 

"O  little  bride,  hurry  in  the  house  and  grind  the  meal — hurry ! 
Hurry  and  get  your  hoe,  hurry! 
O  little  bride,  hurry!" 

"While  the  boiled  greens  are  still  quaking  she  hides  the  kettle 
behind  the  bed! 

H6y6-6! 
While  the  hot  greens  are  still  quaking." 

"You  come  to  steal — 116  y^! 
You  come  to  grudge — H6y6-6! 
You  come  to  deceive — H6  y6-^ ! ' ' 


THE  BULU  61 

"There  is  a  weed  in  this  town,  there  is  a  little  weed — H6! 
There  is  a  child  with  sharp  eyes  in  this  town — H6!" 

So  sing  the  husband's  kin.  And  the  bride's  mother 
sings  too,  little  conventional  petitions  that  the  child 
be  adequately  fed,  that  the  tender  child  be  spared, 
little  phrases  of  maternal  solicitude: 

"Don't  send  my  child  to  fish  in  the  stream 
There  are  little  snakes — O! 
Don't  send  my  child  to  fish  in  the  stream!" 
"They  count  the  bananas  they  feed  my  child — 
They  count  them! 
One,  two  bananas  as  they  feed  my  child 
They  count  them!" 

So  sings  the  mother,  and  the  child's  kinfolk  before 
they  leave  her  in  the  care  of  strange  women;  and  the 
little  girl  stands  bewildered  at  the  heart  of  the 
circling  dances. 

Or  if  it  be  her  father's  pleasure  to  delay  the  de- 
livery of  the  goods,  do  not  think  that  the  girl  is  bred 
in  innocence  under  her  mother's  roof.  She  v/as  not 
born  to  the  possession  of  her  body;  this  is  hired  out 
to  her  father's  material  advantage  among  young 
bucks — prospective  purchasers,  men  who  bring 
wealth  to  the  town.  Not  her  father  only,  and  her 
elder  brother,  may  thus  make  profit  of  her  person, 
but  her  husband  will  do  so,  in  the  times  of  the  great 
clearings  when  a  new  town  is  to  be  built,  or  a  great 
garden  planted — she  will  then  serve  as  hire  to  strong 
young  men.  Through  her  use  a  successful  hunter 
may  be  attached  to  her  husband's  service,  and  she, 
if  she  is  desirable,  may  be  a  token  of  hospitality  to 
an  honored  guest. 


^  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

By  way  of  being  security  she  may  be  lodged  with 
her  husband's  creditors.  How  many  women  wear  out 
weary  years  in  this  friendless  bondage!  Or,  not 
having  borne  children  to  her  husband,  she  may  be 
sent  on  a  visit  to  the  town  of  his  tribal  brother. 
jjj  j,gj.  But  her  children,  born  of  whatever 

maternal  connection,  belong  not  to  herself,  nor 

"^°*^®*  necessarily  to  their  father,  but  to  the 

man  who  owns  her.  To  her  own  father,  or  other  male 
guardian,  if  born  before  marriage,  and  to  her  husband 
if  born  after  marriage.  As  she  is  not  born  to  the 
possession  of  her  body,  so  she  is  not  born  to  the 
possession  of  her  children.  Women  who  have  been 
sold  from  marriage  to  marriage  may  leave  little 
children  at  every  station  of  that  aimless  wandering. 
Thus  the  slave  is  branded  on  the  heart. 
The  things  And  it  is  by  way  of  the  heart  that  the 

of  fetish.  woman   is   slave   to   fetish.  By   her 

body  she  is  slave  to  goods,  and  alas,  by  the  consent 
of  her  body,  to  sex.  But  by  her  heart — the  pangs  of 
it,  its  maternal  pangs,  its  hunger  for  permanent 
affections,  its  need  to  cast  anchor  in  some  certain 
good — by  that  she  is  slave  to  fetish.  To  keep  her 
husband's  love,  what  love-potions!  To  ease  her 
jealousies,  what  evil  charms!  To  safeguard  her  little 
one,  what  plaitings  of  grass  anklets  and  bracelets, 
what  desperate  hopes  tied  up  in  little  amulets,  in 
little  things  of  magic!  And  if  she  die — this  slave  to 
fetish — they  will  tie  a  belt  of  bells  about  her  baby's 
middle,  and  the  sound  of  these  bells  will  contmually 
drive  away  that  maternal  spirit — still  a  slave. 


THE  BULU  6S 

The  slave's  To  such  as  these  in  a  very  definite 

liberation.  sense  Christ  is  a  liberator.  It  is  not 

for  nothing  that,  of  the  women  who  have  come  under 
my  hand,  many  have  fastened  with  a  pecuhar  ten- 
acity on  the  verses  that  say  for  them,  "He  has  made 
the  captives  free;"  "The  truth  has  made  you  free." 
This  African  woman  has  a  bald  knowledge  of  her 
enslaved  state.  She  is  violent,  undisciplined;  her 
tongue  is  a  fire  and  a  sword,  she  is  unmoral,  un- 
reliable; but  she  is  humble-minded.  In  the  Biblical 
sense  this  violent  creature,  caught  in  a  net  of  tattoo, 
bridled  and  belted  with  beads,  collared  and  brace- 
leted  with  brass,  this  woman — so  harnessed  in  bar- 
barous ornament — is  meek  and  poor  in  spirit.  She 
is  poor  in  the  most  conscious  and  the  most  pitiable 
sense.  Christ's  act  of  redemption  has  a  tangible  and 
obvious  application  to  herself.  I  have  seen  the  first 
words  of  the  Gospel  arrest  a  young  Ntum  woman  so 
abruptly  that  you  would  have  said  a  hand  had  been 
laid  upon  her,  and  back  of  her  harness  of  tattoo  and 
of  beads  her  woman  face,  so  soft  and  mutable,  was 
stricken  to  the  most  profound,  the  most  personal 
attention.  That  being,  enslaved  to  goods  and  sex 
and  fetish  received,  with  what  astonishment  in  that 
word  of  the  Word  of  God,  her  first  intimation  that 
there  is  any  escape  from  the  prison  of  material  cir- 
cumstance! Until  she  heard  that  word  she  was  never 
at  any  time  conscious  of  a  self  which  could  not  be 
bought  and  sold.  Until  then  she  had  never  con- 
ceived of  a  personal  possession  of  any  sort,  however 
humble,  and  how  far  she  had  been  from  any  'self- 


(?4  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

possession!  Never  before  had  her  self  been  ad- 
dressed. And  in  the  moment  of  that  Divine  address 
there  was  a  pause  in  her  universe;  the  things  of  the 
body  were  smitten  to  a  perceptible  arrest.  She  had 
been  grinding  meal;  her  hand,  with  the  upper  stone, 
lay  idle  on  the  nether  stone;  her  eyes  were  fixed; 
in  all  her  hut  nothing  stirred  while  that  Ntum  woman 
experienced  the  obscure  shock  of  her  first  spiritual 
summons. 

Solidarity  To  an  extraordinary  degree  there  is 

°*  ^"-  among  the  Bulu  a  solidarity  of  sex. 

"God  created  all  people  of  two  tribes,"  the  women 
tell  me,  "the  tribe  of  man  and  the  tribe  of  woman." 
The  things  of  one  tribe  are  hidden  from  the  other 
tribe.  There  is  "a  wisdom  of  men  and  a  wisdom  of 
women,"  though  the  wisdom  of  women  is  a  small 
matter,  a  matter  to  laugh  at  among  men.  And 
women,  for  all  they  have  a  housewifely  and  maternal 
contempt  for  men,  yet  are  humble  before  them, 
ashamed  before  them  of  their  age-old  accumulation 
of  wisdom,  not  displaying  before  them  their  little 
treasure  of  verity  garnered  from  their  labors  and 
their  loves  and  their  sorrows,  "since  the  birth  of 
men."  "I  am  as  stupid  as  a  hen,"  is  the  common 
feminine  self-analysis. 

In  the  things  A  peculiar  shame  attaches  to  the 
of  labor.  performance  of  a  woman's  work  by 

a  man;  the  division  of  labor  is  determined  by  the 
most  rigid  custom.  None  but  women  grind  meal, 
none  but  men  sew  the  strips  of  beaten  bark  cloth 
into  squares.  And  about  every  handicraft  of  the 


THE  BULU  65 

tribes  there  is  the  law  of  sex,  and  the  understood 

element  of  nobility  or  ignobility.  "Am  I  a  woman 

that  I  should  bring  in  food  from  the  garden?  I  will 

starve  first." 

And  if  in  the  things  of  labor  the  customs  of  sex 

are  "very  strong,"  much  stronger  are  they  in  the 

matter  of  fetish.  Woe  to  those  who  are  ignorant  in 

these  matters — who  confuse  the  food,  the  acts,  the 

liberties,  which  are  the  privileges  of  men,  with  the 

food  and  the  acts  and  the  liberties  w^hich  are  the 

forbidden  things  for  women.     It  is  a  very  literal 

instance  of  the  one  man's  meat  and  the  other's 

poison.  I  have  seen  a  young  Christian  woman  almost 

faint  away  when  she  came  to  this  crucial  question: 

"Do  you  believe  that  God  created  men  and  women 

equal.'*"  Back  of  her  stood  her  Christian  husband. 

She  turned  her  face  until  she  met  his  eyes;  there 

she  received  the  grave  command  of  his  gaze;  her 

arm  went  up  slowly  in  sign  of  assent.   It  was  with 

great  timidity  that  she  stepped  off  into  that  nobler 

thought  of  herself  as  woman. 

"All  people  are  of  two  tribes,"  I  am 
Common  bonds.         ,1  i  .  •        t  ^  u 

told;    and    yet    agam    1    am    told, 

"every  man  a  son  of  man."  This  is  the  proverbial 

expression   of   an   understood   common   humanity. 

Man  and  woman,  master  and  slave — every  person 

is  a  son  of  man,  born  to  a  common  lot.     Over  human 

foible  and  error  is  cast  the  cloak  of  this  proverb. 

Sorrow  is  commiserated  in  these  words.  And  most 

this  is  true  in  the  things  of  custom  and  in  the  things 

of  fear. 


66  AN  AFRICAN'  TRAIL 

The  things  To  the  things  of  custom  the  man  as 

of  custom.  ^,gU   ^g    t^jjg   woman   is   slave.  "We 

Bulu,  we  do  so."  "It  is  our  custom,"  "Who  would 
question  the  things  to  which  we  are  born?"  "From 
the  birth  of  men  we  have  done  thus,  not  otherv/ise." 
So  much  and  more  later,  of  the  iron  bond  of  the 
things  of  custom. 

The  things  There  is  a  common  enslavement  to 

of  fear.  ^Yie  things  of  fear;  "Every  man  a  son 

of  man"  is  true  in  "the  things  of  fear."  In  these  dim 
forests  every  son  of  man  is  born  to  fear.  Temporal 
and  material  fears  he  does  indeed  suffer,  but  these 
minor  fears  are  as  "the  little  finger  to  the  thumb" 
in  comparison  with  the  major  fears  that  are  not 
material  fears.  Here  is  the  sum  of  his  terrors:  fear 
of  other-worldly  things  as  they  impinge  upon  the 
sunny  open  of  this  life,  and  fear  of  the  unknown 
adventure  "beyond  death."  The  white  man  cannot 
see  how  thick  they  gather  about  his  haunted  broth- 
er, these  "millions  of  strange  shadows"  that  tend 
upon  him.  We  who  are  born  to  a  singular  freedom 
in  the  natural  world — what  can  we  know  of  the 
relentless  pressure  upon  the  human  heart  of  the 
crowded  world  of  the  animist?  To  him  the  rocks 
of  this  world,  its  rivers,  its  forests,  all  the  structure 
of  it  and  all  its  ornament,  are  not  sufficient  to  afford 
lodging  for  the  spirit  tenants.  These  inhabit  and 
overflow  all  material  accommodation.  These  pack 
the  world;  and  there  is  a  Bulu  proverb  which  says, 
"A  shadow  never  falls  but  a  spirit  stands."  There 
are  housed  spirits  and  nomad   spirits;  spirits  that 


THE  BULU  67 

are  content  with  their  lodging  in  a  fallen  tree,  in 
a  rock,  easy  to  be  propitiated  with  little  oflPerings  of 
leaves,  of  shells,  of  seeds;  and  there  are  spirits  of 
an  untiring  malevolence:  wanderers,  going  to  and 
fro  seeking  whom  they  may  devour  in  subtle  spirit 
fashion,  open  to  suggestion  from  evil  men,  servants 
of  your  enemy,  fathers  to  inhuman  cruelties  im- 
planted in  the  human  mind,  princes  in  the  realms  of 
fear.  "Go,"  say  these  spirits;  and  alas,  the  son  of 
man — ^he  goeth!  "Come!"  and  he  cometh!  How  can 
the  white  man  know  of  these  things;  and  knowing 
in  part  how  can  he  tell  other  white  men? 

I  will  tell  you  of  Ndongo  Mbe's  father  and  his 
exile.  Ndongo  Mbe's  father,  says  Ndongo  Mbe,  was 
named  Mabale.  And  when  Ndongo  Mbe  was  little, 
no  bigger  than  your  wrist,  Mabale  was  caught  by  a 
strange  sickness,  so  that  he  was  near  death.  In  those 
days  there  was  a  wise  man,  a  "witch  doctor,"  in 
our  neighborhood — himself,  he  is  dead  now,  but 
in  those  days  he  still  breathed, — and  the  brothers  of 
Mabale  sent  for  him  to  come  and  heal  Mabale.  This 
thing  he  certainly  did,  he  healed  him.  And  he  healed 
him  by  a  taboo,  a  very  strong  taboo.  Mabale  re- 
covered from  his  sickness,  but  he  was  "tied"  by  the 
medicine  man  to  this  thing:  that  he  must  never 
see  a  grandchild  of  his.  That  he  must  certainly 
never  do.  And  so  it  was  that,  when  Ndongo  Mbe 
began  to  be  a  yoiuig  man,  the  heart  of  Mabale  was 
hung  up;  he  feared  very  much  lest  he  see  a  grand- 
child— who  knew.?  And  that  thing  would  be  death. 
So  he  took  leave  of  the  people  of  his  own  house,  and 


fi8  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

of  the  village  where  he  was  headman, — yes,  and  even 
of  his  tribe, — and  alone  he  went  away  by  the  paths 
that  go  toward  the  rising  of  the  sun.  Alone  he  went 
away  to  the  unfriendly  tribes  that  build  their  towns 
far  back  that  way.  And  in  one  of  those  strange 
towns  he  built  a  house  for  himself.  Sometimes  one 
of  the  men  of  our  neighborhood,  going  that  way  to 
hunt  an  ivory,  they  have  seen  Mabale.  He  has  asked 
,  the  news  of  his  tow^n  and  of  his  family;  he  has  asked 
news  of  his  grandchildren.  All  night  he  and  his 
tribesmen  have  talked,  and  in  the  morning  they  have 
parted.  But  this  thing  always  happened — that 
Mabale  was  quick  after  such  a  visit,  to  go  away  from 
that  town.  He  said  in  his  heart,  "Lest  my  town's 
people,  knowing  this  path,  show  the  way  to  a  grand- 
child of  mine."  Until  at  last  he  died  in  a  town  far 
away  on  the  paths  to  the  rising  of  the  sun.  And 
when  a  passer-by  from  that  strange  country  told 
Ndongo  of  that  death  in  exile,  there  was  a  peculiar 
sorrow  in  the  hearts  of  that  family.  The  wife  of 
Mabale  turned  to  the  wall  and  wept.  The  children 
and  the  grandchildren  greatly  desired  to  look  upon 
the  grave  of  their  father,  but  they  might  not  for  the 
many  days'  journey. 

So  much  for  a  life  wrecked  by  fear.  This  story  is 
one  of  a  thousand  and  is  chosen  for  its  lack  of  gross 
detail — its  freedom  from  the  element  of  physical 
torture  so  common  to  the  Bantu  dramas  of  fear, 
and  so  degrading  to  the  ears  of  a  white  man. 

And  of  fear  of  things  beyond  death  I  will  tell  you 
that  here,  too,  every  man  is  a  son  of  man.  "Death," 


THE  BULU  69 

say  the  Bulu,  "does  not  pity  beauty,"  "You  till 
the  ground,"  they  say,  "that  will  cover  you."  "There 
is  no  limit  to  death,"  they  say.  "And  many  black 
men  have  told  me,  "My  father  died,  and  when  he 
was  near  death  he  said,  'Put  my  spear  in  my  hand, 
for  the  path  before  me  is  unknown,  and  it  is  a  bad 
path.'  "  Look,  I  pray  you,  with  compassion  upon 
this  black  man  who  must  venture  upon  such  ad- 
ventures so  equipped!  And  when  you  come  upon  the 
dead  man's  little  clay  pipe  and  the  rusting  head  of 
his  spear  laid  out  under  the  sun  and  the  rain  at  the 
limit  of  the  village,  understand  a  little  why  it  is 
that  his  exiled  spirit,  so  unequipped  for  the  hard- 
ships of  the  way,  must  return  to  familiar  places  and 
to  serviceable  things. 

The  spirit  For  he  has  a  spirit.  In  his  world — 

of  man.  overpopulated  with  spirits — the  son 

of  man  has  his  portion.  He  is  conscious  of  his  dual 
life.  There  are  for  him  "the  things  of  the  body," 
and  "the  things  of  the  spirit."  Pain  is  a  thing  of  the 
body;  grief  is  a  thing  of  the  spirit.  The  body  dies 
and  the  spirit  survives. 

There  is  a  thrilling  Bulu  word,  the  word  "Enying." 
It  is  the  word  for  life,  and  dn  the  lips  of  the  natural 
Bulu  there  is  an  immemorial  thrilling  phrase,  "I 
desire  life."  For  our  Bulu  conceives  himself  as  a 
vessel  for  the  fluid  manifestations  of  life.  He  is 
filled,  or  he  is  emptied,  of  life;  as  the  hart  panteth 
after  the  water  brooks,  so  panteth  our  Bulu  after 
"life."  This  is  his  problem — ^how  to  acquire 
"Enying,"  or  life;  how  to  appropriate  a  share,  or 


70  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

if  may  be,  a  double  share,  in  that  precious  commod- 
ity which  he  conceives  as  an  element,  immanent 
and  manageable  if  one  but  knew  the  secret!  For 
his  little  vessel — the  vessel  of  his  body,  with  its  con- 
tent of  life — is  without  protection,  w'ithout,  let  us 
say,  a  lid.  His  treasure  is  in  a  violable  vessel.  There 
is  more  life  and  there  is  less;  there  are  thieves  of  life 
and  acts  of  theft;  spirit  thieves  and  mortal  thieves. 
There  is  a  flux  of  the  precious  essence.  Mabale  on 
his  wanderings  was  doing  all  that  man  could  do 
against  a  threatened  division,  to  "hold  body  and 
soul  together." 

This  soul, — this  ultimate  human  portion  of  the 
element  of  life,— what  is  its  substance.'* 

These  things  are  obscure.  Elmsie  says  that  among 
the  Ngoni  they  say,  "His  shadow  is  still  present," 
meaning  that,  though  on  the  point  of  death,  the 
man's  spirit  is  still  with  him.  The  wisest  Bulu 
woman  I  ever  knew  told  me  that  she  was  born  in  the 
town  of  Moonda,  v/here  they  certainly  said  that  this 
thing  on  the  wall  that  followed  a  man's  body — the 
shadow  of  him — was  the  ma?i.  For  certainly  his 
Jlesh  was  not  the  man.  And  in  their  ignorance  they 
thought — who  knew — ^why  not  the  shadow.'' 

All  students  of  the  Bantu  people  are  familiar  with 
this  solution  of  the  ultimate  human  problem.  Many 
other  Bulu  have  offered  me,  timidly,  the  theory  that 
the  spirit  of  man  and  his  shadov/  were — perhaps, 
who  knew — one  substance.  And  I  was  once  in  a 
house  of  mourning  where  one  of  the  young  widows 
sitting  among  the  ashes  took  courage  from  despera- 


THE  BULU  71 

tion  to  show  me  the  root  of  a  consuming  fear:  she 
had  three  shadows!  The  cross  lights  in  that  little 
hut  cast  a  shadow  of  that  terror-stricken  child  of 
man  upon  three  walls.  What  were  her  thoughts  of 
that  possession?  I  cannot  say.  "The  heart,"  says 
the  Bulu,  "goes  to  hide  in  the  dark."  Only  of  Christ 
it  is  said,  "He  did  not  hunt  a  man  to  give  Him  news 
of  men,  because  Himself  He  knew  the  things  that 
are  in  the  heart  of  man."  And  to  that  thrilling  Bulu 
cry, — "I  desire  life," — Christ  alone  answers,  "I 
have  come  to  give  you  life  and  to  give  it  more  abund- 
antly!" 


72  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

A  NOTE  ON  THE  BANTU 

There  is  but  one  indigenous  language-family  over  the  whole  of 
Central  and  South  Africa,  the  only  exceptions  to  this  universality 
of  tj-pe  being  a  few  patches  of  Sudanian  tongues  on  the  Northern 
Congo,  Nilotic  dialects  in  East  Africa,  a  click  language  south 
of  the  Victoria  Nyanza,  and  the  nearly  extinct  Hottentot  and 
Bushman  languages  of  South-west  Africa. 

To  the  south  of  a  zigzag  boundary,  which  stretches  from 
Fernando  Po  on  the  west  to  Mombasa  on  the  east,  lies  the 
sphere  of  the  Bantu  speech.  Within  this  sphere  lie  the  most  bar- 
barous, the  least  developed  and  the  latest  explored  parts  of  Africa, 
a  third  portion  of  the  Dark  Continent  which  was  only  seriously 
tackled  by  the  intelligent  white  man  at  the  commencement  of  the 
Nineteenth    Century. 

No  sooner  was  any  attempt  made,  a  hundred  and  more  years 
ago,  by  scientific  men  to  compass  the  natives  of  East,  South-west 
and  South  Africa,  than  they  realized  they  were  dealing  with  a 
single-language  family;  whether  they  surveyed  Zanzibar,  the 
Kamerun,  Angola,  Mozambique,  Eastern  Cape  Colony  or  Natal. 
And  when  at  a  later  date,  Portuguese  and  British  explorers  began 
to  cross  Africa  from  one  side  to  the  other,  it  was  evident  that  the 
similarity  of  speech  extended  right  across  this  Southern  third 
of    the    continent. 

— Sir  H.  H.  Johnston,  The  Opening-up  of  Africa,  p.  131. 
Henry  Holt. 


A  SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY  COMMENT  ON  THE 

SOUTH  AFRICAN 
Others  will  say  that  the  natives  are  savages  and  cannibals,  and 
that  no  good  is  to  be  expected  from  them,  but  that  we  must  be 
always  on  our  guard;  this,  however,  is  only  a  popular  error  as  the 
contrary  shall  be  fully  shown.  We,  of  the  said  Ship  "Haarlem," 
testify  wholly  to  the  contrary,  for  the  natives,  after  we  had  lain 
these  five  months  (still)  came  daily  with  perfect  amity  to  the 
fort  which  we  had  thrown  up  for  our  defence,  in  order  to  trade, 
and  brought  cattle  and  sheep  in  quantities. 


THE  BULU  73 

By  maintaining  a  good  correspondence  with  them,  we  shall 
be  able  to  employ  some  of  their  children  as  boys  and  servants, 
and  educate  them  in  the  Christian  Religion,  by  which  means  if  it 
pleases  God  Almighty  to  bless  this  good  cause,  as  at  Tayouan  and 
Formosa,  many  souls  will  be  brought  to  God  and  to  the  Christian 
Reformed  Religion,  so  that  the  formation  of  the  said  fort  and 
garden  will  not  only  tend  to  the  gain  and  profit  of  the  Honorable 
Company,  but  to  the  preservation  and  the  saving  of  many  men's 
lives,  and  what  is  more,  to  the  magnifying  of  God's  Holy  Name, 
and  to  the  propagation  of  His  Gospel. 

— Quoted  from  a  document  of  the  Dutch  East  India  Com- 
pany, by  J.  du  Plessis,  A  History  of  Christian  Missions 
in  South  Africa,  p.  20,  Longmans  &  Co. 


POLYGAMY  AMONG  THE  NGONI 

One  of  the  greatest  social  and  moral  evils  among  the  tribe  is 
polygamy.  The  evils  are  seen  among  all  classes,  for,  as  the  tribe 
existed  by  raiding  other  tribes,  all  who  could  bear  arms  might 
possess  themselves  of  captive  wives.  Among  the  upper  classes  the 
rich  held  the  power  to  secm-e  all  the  marriageable  girls  in  the 
tribe,  by  purchasing  them  from  the  parents  for  so  many  cattle. 

The  practice  of  paying  cattle  was  not  in  all  cases  wholly  bad, 
but  the  tendency  was  to  outrage  the  higher  motives  and  feelings, 
especially  in  the  women  who  often  were  bargained  for  by  their 
parents  long  before  they  entered  their  teens. 

The  cattle  paid  to  the  father  of  the  bride  formed  a  portion  which 
she  could  claim  and  have  as  a  possession,  in  the  event  of  her  being 
driven  away  by  the  cruelty  of  her  husband,  and,  in  the  absence 
of  a  nobler  sentiment,  it  was  in  some  degree  a  safeguard  of  the 
interests  of  the  wife.  But  upon  no  grounds,  social  or  moral, 
couJd  such  a  practice  be  defended.  It  is  inimical  to  the  true 
morality  of  marriage,  and  consequently  to  the  progress  of  the  race. 

It  is  no  uncommon  thing  to  find  grey-headed  old  men,  with 
half-a-score  of  wives  already,  choosing,  bidding  for,  and  securing 
without  the  woman's  consent,  the  young  girls  of  the  tribe. 

Disparity  of  age,  emotions  and  associations,  make  such  unions 


74  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

anything  but  happy,  and  nowhere  do  quarrels  and  witchcraft 
foment  more  surely  than  in  a  polygamous  household. 

A  man's  wives  are  not  all  located  in  one  village.  He  may  have 
several  villages,  and  from  neglect  young  ^4ves  are  subject  to 
many  grievances  and  temptations,  so  that  it  is  no  wonder  they 
age  in  appearance  so  rapidly. 

They  are  often  maltreated  by  the  senior  wives,  who,  jealous 
of  them,  bring  charges  against  them,  and  in  the  hour  when  they 
should  have  the  joy  of  expectant  motherhood,  they  are  cast 
aside  under  some  foul  charge  without  human  aid  or  sympathetic 
care.  On  more  than  one  occasion  I  have  been  called  by  a  weeping 
mother  to  give  aid  to  her  daughter  in  such  circumstances,  where 
if  a  fatal  issue  resulted,  she  and  her  family  would  have  been  taken 
into  slavery  and  their  possessions  confiscated.  Flippant  writers 
on  such  customs,  especially  some  travelers  who  had  not  the  oppor- 
tunity of  becoming  acquainted  with  the  people,  state  that  poly- 
gamy is,  in  the  savage  state,  where  there  is  an  absence  of  higher 
motives,  a  safeguard  of  morality.  It  is,  however,  far  from  being 
so.  Men  with  several  wives,  and  many  of  the  wives  of  polygamists, 
have  assignations  with  members  of  other  families. 

I  Lave  been  told  by  serious  old  men  that  such  is  the  state  of 
family  life  in  the  village  that  any  man  could  raise  a  case  against 
his  neighbor  at  any  time,  and  that  is  one  reason  why  friendliness 
appears  so  marked  among  them — each  has  to  bow  to  the  other 
in  fear  of  offending  him  and  leading  to  revelations  that  would 
rob  him  of  all. 

— W.  A.    Elmslie,    Among  the  Wild  Ngoni,  p.  57. 


THINGS  OF  DARKNESS 

It  is  the  gloaming.  You  hear  the  ringing  laughter  of  little 
children  who  are  playing  before  their  mothers.  They  are  such 
little  tots  you  want  to  smile  with  them,  and  you  draw  near  them, 
but  you  quickly  turn  aside,  shivering  with  horror.  These  little 
girls  are  making  a  game  of  obscenity,  and  their  mothers  are 
laughing. 


THE  BULU  75 

The  moon  has  risen.  The  sound  of  boys  and  girls  singing  in 
chorus  and  the  clapping  of  bands  tell  of  village  sport. 

You  turn  out  of  the  village  square  to  see  lads  and  girls  at  play. 
They  are  dancing,  but  every  act  is  awful  in  its  shamelessness, 
and  an  old  grandmother,  bent  and  withered,  has  enterd  the  circle 
to  incite  the  boys  and  girls  to  more  loathsome  dancing. 

You  go  back  to  your  tent  bowed  with  an  awful  shame  to  hide 
yourself.  But  from  that  village  and  that  other,  the  dance  choruses 
are  rising,  and  you  know  that  under  the  clear  moon  God  is  seeing 
wickedness  that  cannot  be  named,  and  there  is  no  blush  in  those 
that  practise  it. 

Next  morning  the  village  is  gathered  together  to  see  your 
carriers  at  worship,  and  to  hear  the  news  of  the  white  stranger. 
You  improve  the  occasion  and  stand  ashamed  to  speak  of  what 
you  saw.  The  dance  boys  are  there,  the  same  old  grandmother, 
but  clear  eyes  look  up  and  there  is  no  look  of  shame  anywhere. 
It  is  hard  to  speak  of  such  things,  but  you  alone  are  ashamed  that 
day;  and  when  you  are  gone  the  same  horror  is  practised  under 
the  same  clear  moon. 

No,  I  cannot  speak  of  the  bitterness  of  heathenism,  only  its 
horror.  True  there  were  hags  there  who  were  only  middle-aged 
women,  and  there  were  men  bowed,  scarred,  dull-eyed  with 
furrowed  faces.  But  when  these  speak  or  sing  or  dance,  there 
seems  to  be  no  alloy  in  their  merriment.  The  children  are  happy 
as  only  children  can  be.  They  laugh  and  sing,  and  show  bright 
eyes  and  shining  teeth  all  day  long.  But  what  of  that?  Made  in 
God's  image  to  be  His  pure  dwelling-place,  they  have  become  the 
dens  of  foul  devils;  made  to  be  the  sons  of  God,  they  have  become 
the  devotees  of  passion. 

I  have  passed  through  the  valleys  of  two  little  rivers  only  and 
have  seen  there  something  of  the  external  life  of  those  who  can 
be  the  children  of  God.  The  horror  of  it  is  with  me  day  and  night. 
And  on  every  side  it  is  the  same.  In  hidden  valleys  where  we  have 
never  been,  in  villages  quite  near  to  this  station  the  drum  is 
beating  and  proclaiming  shame  under  God's  face. 

• — W.  A.  Elmslie,  quoting  from  Donald  Eraser,  Among  the 
Wild  Ngoni,  p.  54. 


76  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

QUESTIONS  FOR  CHAPTER  II. 

1.  What  races  occupy  Africa? 

2.  WTiat  religions  are  prevalent  among  these  races: 

3.  ^Mlat  race  occupies  your  own  African  field? 

4.  Is  your  mission  working  in  a  forest  country  or  a  grass 
country? 

5.  What  are  the  marriage  customs  of  the  tribes  of  that  region? 

6.  What  is  the  native  form  of  government?  If  by  headmen, 
are  the  communities  so  governed  large  or  small? 

7.  Do  you  know  the  names  of  any  of  the  famous  leaders  of 
these  tribes? 

8.  How  do  the  tribes  of  your  district  build  their  houses? 

9.  How  do  they  dress  in  the  more  primitive  parts  of  your  field? 

10.  WTiat  is  the  principal  occupation  of  the  women?  the  men? 

11.  What  is  the  system  of  agriculture  there? 

12.  What  is  the  form  of  currency  in  use,  if  any? 
IS.  What  are  the  native  crafts  and  arts? 

14.  Are  any  of  the  people  cannibals? 


BIBLE  READING  AND  PRAYER 
FOR  CHAPTER  III. 

Hebrews   1:1-4   inclusive 
John   1:1-18  inclusive 


Prayer 

OTHOU,  who  art  the  true  Sun  of  the  world, 
evermore  rising,  and  never  going  down;  who, 
by  Thy  most  wholesome  appearing  and 
light  dost  nourish,  and  make  joyful  all  things,  as 
n  ell  that  are  in  heaven,  as  also  that  are  on  earth;  We 
beseech  Thee  mercifully  and  favourably  to  shine 
into  our  hearts,  that  the  night  and  darkness  of  sin, 
and  the  mists  of  error  on  every  side,  being  driven 
away.  Thou  brightly  shining  within  our  hearts,  we 
may  all  our  life  long  go  without  any  stumbling  or 
offense,  and  may  walk  as  in  the  daytime,  being  pure 
and  clean  from  the  works  of  darkness,  and  abound- 
ing in  all  good  works  which  Thou  hast  prepared  for 
us  to  walk  in.     Amen. — Erasmus. 


THE  BULU  AND  GOD  83 

Many  Thonga  claim  to  have  seen  the  old,  old  road 
by  which  these  two  came.  White  it  is  and  straight — 
worn  and  widened  by  the  innumerable  feet  of  the 
caravans  of  men  who  followed.  At  that  time  the 
stones  were  not  yet  hardened.  The  Thonga  have 
seen  the  marks  made  by  the  mortars  of  the  women 
in  that  expedition,  and  the  little  marks  made  by  the 
hemp  pipes  laid  down  by  the  men. 

So  say  the  Thonga;  and  our  Bulu  of  the  elders 
say,— 

"When  Zambe  created  this  country  he  created 
people  then.  He  created  Man-of-Zambe,  Dwarf-of- 
Zambe,  Gorilla-of-Zambe,  and  Chimpanzee-of- 
Zambe.  And  he  gave  them  all  things  that  were  the 
tools  of  labor,  and  gave  them  seed  for  food  and  gave 
each  one  a  live  ember.  And  to  each  he  gave  his 
woman  (mate). 

"Then  Zambe  left  them.  Said  he — T  will  come 
again  and  visit  you.'  And  Zambe  left  them.  And 
they  separated  by  four  paths — they  with  their 
mates. 

"And  the  chimpanzee  laid  down  all  the  things 
(tools  of  labor)  that  Zambe  had  given  him,  and  the 
live  ember,  and  left  them  on  top  of  the  path.  He 
said  to  his  mate,  'Come  on,  let  us  eat  the  fruit  of  the 
forest,'  and  they  turned  aside  into  the  forest  and 
ate  the  fruits  of  the  forest.  They  never  thought 
again  of  the  things  they  left  on  top  of  the  path. 
And  the  fire  died.  They  turned  to  the  forest  (this 
implies  a  degeneration). 

"So,  too,  did  the  gorilla. 


M  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

"And  the  dwarf  went  into  the  forest  with  his  fire 
and  his  axe  and  his  knife,  and  all  the  things  that 
Zambe  had  given  him.  And  he  gathered  food  and 
killed  animals  and  slept  there.  And  the  dwarf  said, 
'I  feel  trouble  to  make  a  clearing  and  plant  food.' 
So  he  left  the  seed  on  the  ground. 

"And  Man-of-Zambe  went  by  his  path,  he  took 
his  cutlass  and  made  a  clearing  and  burned  the 
clearing.  Then  they  planted  food.  So  they  stayed 
there.  They  planted,  they  ate. 

"And  Zambe  said,  T  had  better  go  and  visit 
them.*  He  first  turned  off  on  the  path  the  gorilla 
had  gone.  And  he  found  on  top  of  the  path  that  all 
the  seeds  of  food  were  still  on  top  of  the  path.  And 
he  suddenly  heard  the  gorilla  bark.  And  Zambe  said, 
'You  are  foolish,  you  are  a  gorilla.'  And  he  left  him 
there,  he  went  away. 

"And  he  followed  the  path  the  chimpanzee  had 
gone.  And  he  found  the  seeds  still  on  the  ground  and 
that  the  fire  had  died.  He  heard  the  chimpanzee  cry. 
So  he  said  to  him,  'You  are  certainly  an  animal.' 

"Then  he  followed  the  path  of  the  dwarfs  and  he 
found  a  fire-place  and  the  refuse  of  meat  there  and 
that  they  had  made  a  shelter.  And  the  dwarf  said 
to  him,  'Ah,  Father,  I  feel  trouble  to  make  a  clearing 
and  to  plant  food,  I  will  just  hunt  animals  and  gather 
the  fruit  of  the  forest.'  And  Zambe  agreed. 

"Then  Zambe  followed  the  path  of  the  man. 
And  he  found  that  he  had  built  a  town,  and  there 
was  much  food  in  the  town.  He  said  to  him,  'You 
are  certainly  a  real  man,  you  will  hold  your  place 
over  all  things,  you  are  of  a  wise  heart.'  " 


THE  BULU  AND  GOD  85 

The  So  much  for  creation,  for  equipment, 

estrangement.  f^j.  i\i^i  paternal  care  which  provid- 
ed a  name,  and  an  ember,  and  seeds,  and  the  tool. 
You  would  say  that  the  man  and  his  woman  were 
set  up  in  life,  with  a  future,  with  a  Father-God. 
You  would  say  that  they  were  an  established  people. 
But  no. 

There  is  an  enemy — a  deceiver.  Watch  what 
comes.  Among  the  Thonga  it  is  the  chameleon. 
Death,  say  the  Thonga,  came  by  fault  of  the  chame- 
leon. Among  our  BuJu  the  lizard  was  the  arch  de- 
ceiver, and  the  chameleon,  who  might  have  saved 
all,  was  too  slow.  Say  the  Bulu,  of  the  things  of  the 
beginning — the  early  morning  of  things: 

"And  Zambe  tied  man  with  this  tying — 'Your 
first  born,  if  he  die,  do  not  dig  a  grave  but  put  him 
up  in  the  rack  above  the  fire,  and  I  will  come,  and 
I  will  come,  and  decide  about  death.' 

"And  Zambe  returned  (from  whence  he   came). 

"Time  passed  (literally,  nights  passed)  and  the 
woman  bore  a  child.  And  the  child  died.  They  put 
him  in  the  rack  above  the  fire  one  night.  Then  the 
lizard  came  and  deceived  the  woman  thus: 

"  Zambe  said,  *Do  not  put  the  child  in  the  rack, 
but  dig  a  grave/ 

"The  woman  believed  this  word  and  called  her 
husband  and  told  him  the  news.  They  buried  tli3 
child.  And  the  chameleon  came.  He  said; 

"  'You  have  mistaken  the  tying  Zars^e  gave  you. 
Now  it  will  be  that  some  people  will  die,  others  will 
live.' 


86  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

"A  little  time  passed  and  Zambe  came.  He  asked 
them,  'AMiere  is  the  child?'  Said  they,  'We  have 
buried  him  in  a  grave.'  Said  Zambe,  'Why  so.'*' 
Said  they,  'The  lizard  told  us  that  God  had  said, 
"Bury  the  child." ' 

"Then  Zambe  said,  'Since  you  have  despised  me, 
therefore  you  will  die  and  die.' 

"Then  death  increased  in  the  land." 
God  Here,  so  far  as  I  have  ever  been  told 

withdrawn.  \yy  ^  black  man,  and  so  far  as  I  have 

been  able  to  discover  in  the  notes  of  other  white 
men  of  our  neighborhood,  is  an  end  of  visiting 
between  the  Bulu  and  his  Maker.  That  august 
presence,  withdrawing  by  way  of  the  sea,  passes 
off  the  scene.  About  God  the  commonest  saying  is : 

"Zambe,  having  created  us,  forgot  us." 

Yet  of  that  remote  friendship  between  God  and 
man  this  much  remains — a  knowledge  of  God  as 
one,  as  creator,  and  as  august. 

Knowledge  of  More  remains.  *Dr.  Good,  the  pio- 
certain  Divine       neer,  in  his  short  encounter  with  the 

"  "  ®  *  Bulu,  found  that  Zambe  concerned 

himself  with  matters  of  life  and  death. 

"O,  Zambe,  Thou  hast  made  us,  why  then  dost 
Thou  take  away  an  only  wife?" 

"Zambe,  do  not  take  me  till  I  first  see  how  my  son 
will  hunt!" 

"Zambe  has  saved  him,  he  is  a  son  of  Zambe" 
(said  of  one  who  has  experienced  a  remarkable 
deliverance) . 

*  A  lAfefor  Africa,  by  Ellen  Parsons,  p.  226. 


THE  BULU  AND  GOD  87 

Of  another  tribe  of  the  Bantu,  the  Galwa,  Dr. 
Good  notes  the  following  conventional  salutations, 
old  family  proverbs  or  mottoes,  of  which  the  two 
friends  recite  each  his  phrase. 

Address — "There  is  no  fetish  of  life  that  can  give 
life!" 

Reply — "Fetish  only  Anyambi!" 

Address — "Death  knows  no  doctor!" 

Reply — "Doctor  only  Anyambi!" 

Address — "Do  not  ridicule  me!" 

Reply — "Anyambi!"  (meaning  do  not  ridicule 
me,  for  God  Himself  made  me  what  you  see  me). 

More  there  is  of  this  thrilling  matter  in  the  record 
of  Dr.  Good's  life,  and  in  the  lives  of  African  pioneers. 
The  mark  of  the  Divine  foot  is  in  the  rock,  worn  now 
almost  away,  so  that  the  young  of  the  race  may  not 
know  how  deep  an  impress  it  once  was. 
Petition  Of  certain  tribes  of  the  Bantu  it  is 

and  sacrifice.  gajd  that  they  pray  to  the  Creator— 
in  matters  of  life  and  death  and  in  times  of  great 
stress.  The  people  of  Nyasa-land  in  case  of  epidem- 
ics, in  the  person  of  their  chief  address  the  Creator: 

"Pass  by,  God,  and  do  not  punish  us,  but  render 
us  aid."  Such  a  prayer  is  accompanied  by  sacrifice. 
Again  and  again  in  accounts  of  the  life  of  Bantu 
tribes  there  is  record  of  religious  sacrifice  accom- 
panied by  prayer.  Mr.  W.  C.  Johnston,  of  our  mis- 
sion, saw  in  a  Bulu  community  the  sacrifice  of  a 
lamb,  whose  blood  was  sprinkled  on  the  ground  with 
a  plea  for  mercy.  To  whom  addressed?  "Zambe,  who 
created  us,  forgot  us." 


88  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

The  Bulu  Now,    in    a    world    emptied    of    the 

struggle  with         original     and     paternal     beneficence 
the  supernatural  ^^^^  g^^^  j^  j^^^  ^^  j^j^  interminable 

struggle  with  the  supernatural.  To  come  to  terms 
with  the  malice  and  the  hard-won  favor  of  minor  and 
malignant  spirits — this  effort  offers  him  a  perpetual 
career — a  career  of  experimental  magic.  The  millions 
of  strange  shadows — to  come  to  terms  with  these! 
Spirits;  their  The  disembodied,  the  things  of  the 
grades  and  types,  trees,  of  the  rivers,  of  rocks,  the  mu- 
table manifestations  of  the  spirit  essence  of  the  uni- 
verse— the  wise  know  the  ranks  of  these,  the 
names  of  their  kinds,  their  dignities,  their  disposi- 
tions, their  intentions  tov/ard  mere  man.  There  are 
ancestor  spirits  of  so  great  a  reputation  that  they 
are  as  gods  and  so  served.  There  are  humble  spirits 
so  homesick  foi  the  village  that  they  gather  about 
the  dancers  in  the  evening — they  warm  themselves 
at  the  familiar  hearths.  There  are  those  which 
possess  animals,  and  those  which  possess  men. 
There  are  spirits  which  make  or  mar  births,  there 
are  spirits — these  are  legion — which  kill.  There  are 
lesser  spirits  to  blight  or  bless  in  lesser  measure.  It 
is  not  for  me  to  tell  or  you  to  know  the  list  of  spirits 
or  their  fixed  functions.  This  is  the  wisdom  of  the 
black  man.  Created  by  God  and  forgotten  by  Him, 
he  has  worked  out  for  himself  with  fear  and  trem- 
bling a  salvation.  A  salvage — let  us  say — of  his 
interests  that  are  under  the  sun.  In  particular,  a 
salvage  of  "life."  He  has  apprehended  a  system  in 
the  flux  of  the  immanent  spirit  world  and  he  deals 


THE  BULU  AND  GOD  89 

with   it   methodically.  The   dead   who   protect   or 
aflBict  the  tribe,  he  has  a  service  of  these. 
The  things  In  the  dusk  of  how  many  forest  huts 

of  fetish.  J   have   seen   little   wooden   images 

perched  upon  the  tall  dance  drums,  and  have  recog- 
nized one  of  the  supreme  fetishes  of  the  village. 
These  little  grotesques  were  invested  with  spirit. 
This  is  fetish,  "the  investment  in  a  material  object 
natural  or  artificial,  of  spirit."  And  this  is  fetishism, 
"the  reverence  of  that  object  and  the  worship  of 
that  spirit."  It  is  important  that  the  reader  who  is 
interested  in  the  nature  of  fetish  should  note  that 
the  material  object  is  reverenced,  that  the  spirit  is 
worshipped.  The  skull  of  the  ancestor,  that  most 
sacred  object,  is  only  a  "medium  of  communication" 
as  Mr.  Robert  Milligan  says,  between  the  living  son 
and  the  spirit  of  the  dead  father.  The  rubbings 
of  the  little  images  by  our  Bulu  with  oil,  with  the 
red  powder  of  the  camma  tree,  is  a  kind  of  service 
by  proxy  to  that  ancestral  spirit  which  is  addressed 
in  prayer,  "Ah,  Father,  give  me  riches.  Keep  me  on 
my  journey.  Prosper  my  hunting.  Protect  me  from 
harm." 

Supernatural  By  service  cunningly  devised  to  meet 
commerce.  spirit-need  in  the  matter  of  spirit- 

hunger,  spirit-thirst,  spirit-craving  for  honor  and 
remembrance,  the  spirit  is  lured  to  the  fetish — is 
placated.  For  this,  little  offerings  of  food,  of  orna- 
ment, of  the  "things  of  man."  By  prayer  the  spirit 
is  supplicated.  By  way  of  dreams,  the  spirit  is 
sometimes  articulate.  "My  father  came  to  my  head 


90  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

at  night"  is  the  Bulu  explanation  of  a  significant 
dream. 

The  Bulu  say  "there  are  tribes  and  tribes  and 
customs  and  customs."  So  there  are  spirits  and 
spirits  and  fetishes  and  fetishes.  From  the  powerful 
ancestral  spirits  that  are  tribal  in  their  influence 
and  that  possess  the  little  grotesques  that  leer  in  the 
palaver  house,  down  to  the  least  local  spirit  that 
inhabits  the  fallen  log — there  is  a  science  of  fetish. 
There  is  a  charm  for  every  major  event  of  life  and 
for  every  minor  event.  There  are  charms  against 
fire  and  against  water,  there  are  charms  against 
charms.  A  man  with  a  canoe  will  know  how  to 
deal  with  the  sacred  rock  of  his  neighborhood;  there 
is  a  spirit  in  that  rock  to  be  placated,  with  a  word, 
with  a  silence,  with  a  leaf  of  tobacco — how  do  I 
know?  The  man  who  lives  under  the  shadow  of  a 
cliff  knows  the  way  of  the  spirit  in  the  cliff,  and  the 
river  man  has  the  cult  of  the  river.  As  there  are 
local  spirits  so  there  are  local  fetishes.  As  there  are 
spirits  inimical  to  the  things  of  birth,  so  there  are 
charms  protective  of  the  things  of  birth,  and  of 
marriage  and  of  labor  and  of  death.  This  human 
being  so  beset  by  the  supernatural  devises  con- 
tinually a  way  among  his  difficulties. 
The  And  this  is  to  be  remembered  of  the 

difficulties.  difficulties  of  his  way— Fetishism  is 

not  a  fixed  science.  It  is  an  experimental  science. 
It  is  a  desperate  unceasing  effort  to  cover  all  the 
ground.  It  is  the  expression  of  a  sleepless  anxiety. 
All  the  arduous  and  dangerous  business  of  witch- 


THE  BULU  AND  GOD  91 

craft,  and  testing  for  witches,  the  terrors  of  ordeal, 
trial  by  poison,  all  the  minutiae  of  divination,  all 
the  devious  cruelties  and  inhumanities  and  stu- 
pidities and  subtilties  of  what  might  be  called  by  a 
white  man  "the  black  art"— all  this  tireless  effort 
is  never  met  with  a  sure,  a  permanent  token,  of 
success.  There  is  no  love  potion  so  potent  that  a 
woman  may  rest  in  peace  and  the  thought  that  her 
man  is  her  own.  There  is  no  fetish  so  sure  that  a 
mother  may  hang  it  about  her  baby's  neck  and  know 
that  now  at  last  the  evil  is  averted.  When  by 
divination  a  vital  issue  is  settled,  there  is  still  a  ques- 
tion. And  when  a  valuable  woman  accused  of  witch- 
craft has  fallen  under  the  ordeal  and  has  followed 
her  alleged  victim  to  the  grave,  there  is  still  a  ques- 
tion. All  this  business  of  fetish,  and  its  allied 
sciences  is  terribly  up  in  the  air. 

Eager  as  a  man  is  to  fill  his  side  of  the  contract 
there  is  no  counting  on  the  party  of  the  second  part. 
The  tragic  Here  is  the  pathos — so  much  is  at 

aspect.  stake.  For  him,  as  for  us,  everything 

is  at  stake.  Upon  him  as  upon  us  there  beat  the 
winds  of  chance  and  change.  About  the  little  candle 
of  his  fortune  he  puts  the  two  hands  of  his  religious 
effort;  one  of  the  hands  is  fetish,  the  other  is  taboo. 

„  .  Taboo.  How   is   the   white   man   to 

Taboo.  1.        1  11  J. 

realize  the  nature  and  the  power  ol 

taboo,  how  conceive  the  enslavement  of  men  to  a 

man-made    yoke?  *0f    taboo,    Henri    Junod    says, 

*  The  Life  of  a  South  African  Tribe,  by  Henri  A.  Junod,  vol.  I, 
p.  36. 


92  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

"Any  object,  any  act,  any  person  (is  taboo)  that 
implies  danger  for  the  individual  or  for  the  com- 
munity and  must  subsequently  be  avoided;  this 
object,  act,  or  person  being  under  a  kind  of  ban." 
Taboo  is,  let  us  say,  a  law  of  avoidance  observed 
with  a  view  to  placating  the  supernatural. 
Types  of  Food  of  a  given  sort  may  be  taboo — 

taboo.  |.Q  ^  given  individual  at  a  given  time, 

to  a  given  individual  at  all  times,  to  a  given  sex  at 
all  times,  or  at  given  times.  It  is  recognized  as  an 
object  implying  danger  to  the  individual  or  to  the 
community;  it  is  taboo.  The  flesh  of  a  certain 
gazelle  of  our  forest  is  called  "so,"  the  meat  of  this 
animal  is  taboo  for  all  women  at  all  times.  A  woman 
who  would  eat  "so"  would  bring  a  curse  upon  her 
town;  this  is  a  perpetual  and  unmodified  taboo. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  man  who  expects  to  become  a 
father  may  not  e  t  "so,"  though  this  meat  is  not 
taboo  for  men  at  ther  times;  this  is  an  occasional 
taboo.  Or,  a  mother  who  seeks  to  insure  some  par- 
ticular well-being  for  her  child  may  "tie"  him  from 
his  infancy  to  abstain  from  "so"  or  from  another 
given  common  food;  this  is  a  personal  perpetual 
taboo.  There  are  objects  upon  which  a  given  sex  or 
a  given  individual  may  not  look,  at  a  given  period 
or  at  any  time.  The  skulls  of  the  ancestors  are  in  this 
sense  for  women  perpetually  taboo.  So  much  for 
taboo  as  expressed  in  an  object  which  imphes  danger 
to  the  individual  or  to  the  community. 

Taboo  as  embodied  in  an  act  runs  the  same  gamut. 
Tt  lias  to  do  wit^a  individual  acts  or  with  communal 


THE  BULU  AND  GOD  93 

acts;  it  takes  accoiint  of  sex  and  of  circumstance; 
it  has  a  time  limit  or  may  be  a  perpetual  taboo.  One 
of  the  most  characteristic  types  of  the  act  as  taboo 
is  described  by  Dr.  Weber  who  tells  of  a  man  "tied" 
from  infancy  never  to  receive  into  his  hand  any  gift. 
This  man  had  never  in  his  life  opened  his  hand  to  a 
proffered  object.  For  him  the  act  of  manual  recep- 
tion was  a  personal  perpetual  taboo. 

Taboo  as  embodied  in  a  'person  is  subject  to  time 
and  circumstance  and  sex,  may  be  limited  or  per- 
petual, incidental  or  essential.  I  have  seen  a  mother 
hide  her  baby  from  the  presence  of  a  childless 
woman;  this  hea^^-hearted  one  was  taboo  for  that 
little  being.  This  was  not  a  permanent  ban.  The 
leaders  of  men's  secret  societies  in  the  performance 
of  their  office,  or  in  their  official  paraphernalia,  are 
for  women  intensely  taboo,  and  always. 

For  Mabale,  the  father  of  Nobngo,  his  grand- 
children were  taboo;  this  was  a  personal,  perpetual 
ban. 

Penalties  of  The  Bantu  is  a  pitiless  creator  and  a 

taboo.  scrupulous    observor    of    taboo.  He 

approves  it  and  subscribes  to  it  and  observes  it  at 
whatever  cost.  He  has  a  perfectly  clear  conviction 
of  the  fate  which  blights  a  breaker  of  taboo.  It  is 
obvious — he  does  not  prosper.  In  aggravated  cases 
he  sickens,  he  dies.  The  man  who  ignorantly  breaks 
a  secret  taboo  has  no  excuse  in  his  ignorance,  he, 
too,  falls  upon  evil  times,  or  he  sickens,  he  dies, 
speculative  to  the  end,  and  uncertain  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  taboo  he  may  have  broken. 


94  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

The  Bantu  of  our  neighborhood  speak  of  taboo  as 
a  "tying."  They  are  as  indefatigable  as  their 
fellows,  and  have  their  troubled  share  in  this  racial 
zest  for  authority,  this  need  of  a  religious  command- 
ment which  is  so  large  a  factor  in  the  curious  aban- 
donment of  the  Bulu  to  his  ultimate  Christian  ex- 
perience. 

For  this  amenity  to  a  supernatural  law,  and  this 
knowledge  of  an  august  creator,  and  this  sense  of 
an  immanent  spirit  presence  in  the  world — these 
are  the  gates  to  the  Bulu  mind  by  the  which,  w^hen 
they  be  lifted  up,  the  Eang  of  Glory  shall  come  in. 
The  WTio  is  this  King  of  Glory?  And  your 

Annunciation.  Bantu  is  arrested  by  the  annunciation. 
The  angel  of  the  annunciation, — how  often  he  is  a 
young  Bulu  buck  speaking  by  the  light  of  a  lantern 
to  a  group  of  villagers,  all  seated  on  the  ground 
there  under  the  stars  before  a  palaver  house  of  some 
obscure  hamlet.  There  has  shone  upon  them  sud- 
denly the  light  of  a  lantern,  and  they  have  seen  one 
like  themselves  rise  to  make  the  annunciation.  Or, 
marvel  of  marvels,  he  has  bent  beside  the  light  to 
read  the  printed  page.  On  how  many  windless 
nights,  in  how  many  little  clearings,  I  have  seen 
such  an  intent  young  face — black,  tattooed,  set  with 
brilliant  eyes — lean  above  the  lantern  on  the  ground, 
his  book  turned  sidewise  to  catch  the  light,  a  white 
page  turned  by  those  dark  hands,  a  virile  voice 
reading  from  "the  Letter"  the  "News."  And  about 
him  in  the  shadow  what  brown  bodies  struck  to  still- 
ness in  the  night,  and  about  these  the  little  brown 


THE  BULU  AND  GOD  95 

huts,  and  beyond  these  the  walls  of  the  forest  and 
the  dark.  There,  in  the  heart  of  all  that  darkness  is 
the  lantern,  in  the  heart  of  all  that  silence  is  the 
voice;  and  again  the  Word  becomes  Man,  the  im- 
peccable adventures  go  forv/ard,  Christ  is  born  into 
the  tribe  of  men  and  by  men  is  undone  and  men  by 
Him  are  again  redeemed.  Awe  falls  upon  that  com- 
pany, and  wonder  and  compassion.  They  laugh  for 
wonder — and  they  sigh  for  wonder,  they  sigh,  too, 
for  compassion.  They  speak  the  name  of  "Yesus, 
son  of  Zambe,"  they  pass  that  name  from  one  to 
the  other.  And  when  at  last  they  rise  and  stretch 
their  bodies  and  stroll  away  each  to  his  place  they 
say  to  one  another,  "Who  will  sleep  this  night  in 
this  town?  Each  will  lie  on  his  bed  and  wonder." 

This  scene  of  the  annunciation  is  repeated  every 
night  in  the  great  public  rest  houses  upon  the  main 
travelled  paths  of  our  neighborhood.  Here  the 
carriers  between  the  beach  and  the  interior  will  be 
crowding  in,  men  and  women.  About  the  fires  laid 
upon  the  floor  they  will  be  gathering,  an  aroma  of 
burning  logs  and  of  supper  on  the  fire  will  be  there, 
a  great  sound  of  laughter  and  of  grumbling  will  over- 
flow that  caravansary  where  the  load  is  laid  aside 
and  there  is  ease.  How  often  into  such  a  house  I 
have  seen  Ze  Zonema  go  to  speak  "five  words  of  the 
Word  of  God."  Then  in  the  light  of  the  many  little 
fires  I  have  seen  the  same  arrest,  the  same  huddling 
of  brown  bodies  into  groups,  the  same  concerted 
and — how  shall  I  say — innocent  attention  fix  all 
those  tattooed   faces   with   their   brilliant   eyes.  I 


98  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

know  how  he  would  speak  and  how  they  would 
answer. 

"Do  you  luiderstand?"  he  would  ask  and  "We 
understand!"  they  would  assert — vehemently  and 
with  one  voice.  How,  to  this  chorus,  I  have  heard 
him  announce,  in  his  urgent  voice,  "the  Things  of 
God." 

A  Word  of  "Zambe  created  us  and  returned  to 

^°^-  His  town,  that  town  which  lies  beyond 

death.  All  needful  things  He  left  us  in  the  country 
which  He  gave  us,  which  is  this  life,  and  with  ten 
tyings  He  tied  us. 

A  word  of  "And  if  you  say,  as  our  fathers  have 

remembrance.  g^id,  that  He  created  us  and  forgot 
us,  see  first,  before  you  say  this.  His  perseverance  in 
remembering  us, — the  food  our  women  bring  every 
day  from  the  garden,  the  water  they  draw  every  day 
from  the  spring,  yes,  and  even  the  sun  that  daily 
goes  down  the  old  path  to  the  sea,  and  the  many 
moons  that  wax  and  are  big  and  wane.  Tolo,  too 
(constellation  of  the  hare),  that  in  his  own  time 
stands  above  the  roofs  of  the  houses  for  a  sign  to  the 
sons  of  men  that  they  must  fell  the  clearings  for  the 
new  gardens  before  the  great  rains  have  spoiled 
the  work.  When  you  see  all  these  remembrances 
that  Zambe  who  created  us  has  remembered  us,  will 
you  still  say  that  Zambe  forgets  us?  No,  not  even 
a  single  day!  But  I  ask  you — what  man  remembers 
Zambe.'*  Who  when  he  eats  his  portion  gives  Zambe 
thanks  .-^  Who  drinks  his  water  and  thinks  of 
Zambe? 


A  BANTU  CHIEF 


THE  BULU  AND  GOD  97 

A  word  of  "And   a  thing  which   is  more  than 

the  law.  these  things, — who    keeps    the    ten 

tyings  with  which  Zambe  tied  him?  And  if  you  say, 
'those  ten  tyings,  who  told  us  of  those  ten  tyings 
that  we  should  keep  them?'  I,  too,  I  ask  you,  who 
when  he  committed  adultery  believed  in  his  heart 
that  he  did  the  straight  thing?  Who  killed  a  man  and 
believed  he  did  the  straight  thing?  How  many  of 
you  have  killed  in  secret  and  keep  that  secret  still 
hidden  in  your  hearts  because  you  know  that  you 
have  done  a  thing  that  is  crooked?  The  things  of 
shame  that  are  hidden  in  your  heart,  who  told  you 
that  these  things  were  things  of  shame?  Do  not 
again  tell  me,  'those  ten  tyings,  who  told  us  of  them?' 
when  you  continually  do  the  things  that  you  know 
in  your  heart  are  crooked.  Myself  I  tell  you  this 
true  word,  that  we  all,  from  the  birth  of  men,  we 
have  continually  scorned  God — He-who-created-us 
and  who  is  able  to  destroy  us.  Not  a  man  of  you  is 
able  to  tell  me  that  I  lie.  These  are  true  words.  I 
tell  you  that  Zambe  is  angry  with  us  for  our  scorning 
of  Him.  I  tell  you,  too,  that  we  are  like  people  lost 
in  the  forest.  All  our  paths  are  crooked  paths. 
A  word  of  the  "And  if  you  feel  fear  at  these  true 
Son  of  God.  words  I  tell  you,  I  will  tell  you  a  new 

thing — the  good  news  of  Yesus,  son  of  God,  He  it  is 
that  said  to  Zambe,  'Because  the  people  You  created 
are  like  those  who  are  lost  in  the  forest,  I  will  go 
down  and  show  them  the  path.'  For  this  He  was 
born  of  a  woman,  and  endured  the  life  of  this  coun- 
try. Because  of  His  good  heart  He  loved  us. 


98  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

A  word  of  "Himself  He   redeemed   us,   as   one 

redeeming.  brother    may    redeem    another.  Be- 

cause He  was  straight  in  every  deed  He  did,  Zambe 
agreed  that  He  redeem  us.  And  His  life  was  the 
great  price  He  paid.  He  did  not  pay  goods  like  the 
tusks  of  the  elephant  to  redeem  us.  He  paid  His 
hfe.  As  one  brother  may  pay  the  debts  of  another 
He  paid  ours.  And  because  of  this  paying  that  He 
paid  for  us  I  agree  that  He  possesses  us.  We  must 
agree  that  we  are  His.  He  bought  us,  we  who  were 
of  the  tribe  of  the  people  who  die. 
A  word  of  "And  I  tell  you  this,  not  a  man  of  you 

death.  ^ut    knows   this— that   he   will   die, 

and  not  a  man  of  you  but  knows  this,  too — that 
the  paths  beyond  death  are  dark.  Who  of  all  that 
have  gone  by  those  paths  has  returned  to  tell  the 
news?  They  go  that  way,  but  none  return  to  tell 
the  news.  Yesus,  son  of  Zambe  alone  knows  the 
paths  beyond  death,  ^lio  should  know  the  way  to 
the  father's  town  but  the  son?  And  if  the  son  says 
to  you,  'Come,  I  will  show  you  the  path  to  the 
Father's  town,'  will  you  doubt  the  word  of  the  son? 
I  tell  you  that  Yesus,  He  alone,  is  able  to  say,  'The 
man  who  follows  Me  I  will  show  him  the  path  be- 
yond death,  the  path  to  the  town  of  Zambe.' 

.  ,...  "Life  is  with  Him,  all  life;  Zambe 

A  word  of  life.  ,  ,  ,,     ,,. 

who    created    us    possesses    all    lite. 

Enough  life  for  always.  Men  who  desire  life  must 

receive  their  portion  from  Zambe.  Those  who  speak 

the  name  of  Yesus,  who  are  His  men,  are  able  to 

become  members  of  the  tribe  of  Zambe.  They  are 


ITHE  BULU  AND  GOD  99 

able  to  renew  friendship  with  Zambe.  They  will  not 

be  driven  from  the  town  of  Zambe  beyond  death. 

They  will  have  life,  even  beyond  death. 

.   . .  "This  is  a  good  news  I  tell  you,  that 

A  word  of  love.       -.r  i     •  <•  n  tt* 

Yesus   desires   men   to  lollow   Him. 

He  does  not  hate  any  man  of  any  tribe;  He  loves 

men.  He  sends  them  messengers  that  they  may 

turn  from  the  crooked  path  to  the  straight  path. 

Even  you  who  are  here,  people  of  the  forest,  very 

ignorant,  as  your  fathers  were,  and  still  following 

after  evil — He  desires  you. 

A  word  of  "^^d  i^  yo^  ^^y^  *^®  *^^  ignorant 

the  good  Spirit  people — how  will  we  be  able  to  truly 
°     **  '  understand  these  things.?'  I  can  tell 

you  about  the  Helper  of  men.  He  that  is  the  Good 
Spirit  of  Zambe.  He  enters  the  hearts  of  men.  He 
opens  in  their  hearts  the  things  of  Zambe.  He  draws 
men  upon  paths  that  lead  past  the  villages  where  the 
people  of  the  tribe  of  Zambe  speak  of  the  things  of 
Zambe.  By  His  drawing  the  carriers  desire  to  sleep 
in  this  house  and  not  in  another  palaver  house  where 
there  is  ignorance  of  Zambe.  Because  of  the  work 
that  the  Good  Spirit  of  Zambe  is  able  to  do  in  the 
hearts  of  men,  I  speak  this  word  this  night  and  you 
who  carry  loads — you  hear. 

"Do  you  hear?" 

"We  hear!"  they  assert  of  that  annunciation. 
And  there  in  the  smoke  and  the  firehght  of  the 
palaver  house  there  will  be  one  and  another  head 
lifted,  one  and  another  face  struck  with  the  light  of 
supernatural  truth,  one  and  another  ear  strained 


100  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

to  catch  a  faint  call  that  has  an  echo  in  the  soul,  not 
articulate  as  yet,  no  more  than  a  vibration. 

Old  filialties  are  stirred  by  the  announcement  of 
the  Father-nature  of  God,  old  dreams  recalled  by 
the  God-man,  Son  of  God,  old  sacrificial  instincts 
satisfied  by  the  tragedy  of  the  atonement,  old  racial 
convictions  verified  by  the  assertion  of  a  Spirit- 
presence  in  the  world. 

These  dim  affinities  are  not  felt  to  the  point  of 
recognition,  they  are  often  overlaid  with  laughter, 
always  with  amazement.  But  they  are  there. 
TheBuluaad        That  Christ  who  meets  the  Bulu  or 
the  Word.  ^]^q    Bene    or    the    Ngumba    carrier 

some  night  in  a  clearing  under  the  stars  or  in  a 
palaver  house  by  the  fire,  does  not  address  him  in  a 
foreign  idiom.  He  who  is  the  Word  is  the  Bantu 
word — yes  and  the  Pass- word.  He  is  the  "Child  of 
the  sister" — the  Monekd — that  being  bom  of  two 
tribes,  and  on  his  mother's  side  kin  to  her  brothers, 
and  on  his  father's  side  kin  to  his  father's  tribe. 
By  this  double  blood-bond  he  is  in  time  of  war  the 
intertribal  mediator,  with  defined  and  understood 
functions.  And  Christ  is  the  Moneka,  child  of  the 
"Tribe  of  Above"  and  child  of  Mary,  our  sister; 
our  very  kin,  famihar  with  the  custom  of  our 
country,  compassionate  to  our  adventures,  and  able 
by  his  divine  sonship  to  speak  to  God  in  our  excuse. 
He  is  the  Mediator.  I  know  this  because  the  Bulu 
tell  me.  Those  faces  lifted  in  the  firelight  to  the 
first  dim  revealings  of  the  face  of  Christ — how  many 
such  have  come  to  salute  Him,  when  He  Himself 


THE  BULU  AND  GOD  101 

drew  near,  as  Brother  and  as  Son  of  God.  For 
them  there  has  been  in  Him  no  offence  nor  strange- 
ness. 

*Casalis  tells  of  a  chief  among  the  Basuto  who 
used  often  to  be  asking  of  the  things  of  God. 

"He  did  not  declare  himself  a  Christian  until  the 
approach  of  death,  when  he  died  with  this  filial  cry, — 

"  'Let  me  go  to  my  Father,  I  am  feeling  very  near 
to  Him!'  " 

This  new  confidence  in  the  ancient  disquieting 
dark,  this  sense  of  Divine  protection  in  the  ultimate 
panic,  of  what  inner  revelation  is  this  the  outer 
sign? 

"Before  I  knew  the  things  of  Jesus,"  said  a  Bulu 
to  me,  "I  was  like  a  young  child  crying  in  the  dark 
for  fear;  until  the  day  when  I  knew  Jesus,  then  it 
was  as  if  my  mother  put  her  hand  on  me." 

*  My  Life  in  Basutoland,  by  Eugene  Casalis,  p.  232. 


102  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

THE  ANIMIST  AND  FEAR 

For  us  who  know  we  are  in  God's  bands,  it  is  impossible  to 
imagine  what  a  dreadful  power  this  fear  is  in  the  life  of  the 
heathen.  There  we  see  revealed  the  kernel  of  real  heathenbm, 
and  all  its  theology  and  mythology  are  but  the  shell  enclosing  it. 
With  this  fetter  every  Animist  is  bound.  The  incessant  fear  of 
demons,  and  of  their  evil  plots,  and  of  the  sorcery  closely  con- 
nected with  their  worship,  by  which  these  people  are  tormented, 
passes  our  conceiving.  Alienation  from  God,  who  alone  is  to  be 
feared,  is  the  ultimate  basis  of  this  irrational  fear. 

Heathenism  has  lost  God,  and,  consequently,  has  been  given 
up  to  the  fear  of  spectres,  whose  power  is  real  just  in  proportion 
to  the  estrangement  from  God. 

The  heathen  world  furnishes  an  example  of  how  surely  fear 
debases  man.  Men  of  fearless  character  are  mostly  noble-minded; 
the  fearfid  are  cruel.  Surrounded  by  fell  powers  of  destruction, 
the  Animistic  heathen  grow  distrustful  and  cruel.  Fear  poisons 
every  social  relationship,  distrust  becomes  a  second  nature  to  the 
harassed. 

The  poor  fear  the  rich,  the  weak  the  strong,  the  sick  the  healthy, 
for  each  knows  that  the  other  is  trying  to  enrich  his  own  soul 
power  at  the  expense  of  his  fellow.  But  those  whom  no  one  needs 
to  fear  are  mercilessly  trodden  under  foot. 

What  an  immense  amount  of  fear  is  involved  in  witchcraft,  head 
snatching,  human  sacrifice,  burial  ceremonies,  and  kindred 
Animistic  abominations.  Cruelty  is  everywhere  one  of  the  fruits 
of  Animism;  from  that  fruit  we  can  infer  the  nature  of  the  tree. 

How  sweetly  must  sound  the  words  of  peace  and  rest  on  the 
ears  of  these  poor  souls  in  bondage,  for  in  Animistic  heathendom 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  security  or  peace. 

To  the  heathen  these  demons  whom  they  fear  are  realities. 
God  has  become  an  abstraction,  but  they  have  personal  contact 
with  the  demons. 

Questioned  about  God  and  divine  things,  Animists  will  always 
admit  they  know  nothing  definite  about  them,  but  if  asked 
whethCT  evil  spirits  really  exist,  they  will  unhesitatingly  answer 
yes,  siirprised  that  such  a  strange  question  should  be  put.  If  they 


THE  BULU  AND  GOD  lOS 

were  not  so  firmly  convinced  of  the  existence  and  power  of  the 
demons,  they  would  not  be  so  sorely  tormented  by  fear  of  the 
spirits.  Such  fear  is  not  to  be  trifled  with. 

— John  Wameck,  The  Living  Christ  and  Dying  Heathenism, 
p.  116,  Fleming  H.  Revell. 

SOME  THINGS  OF  THE  ANCESTORS 

The  skull  or  other  relics  of  the  ancestor  differ  from  the  common 
fetish  in  that  the  possessor  of  the  former  cannot  compel  the 
ancestor  to  do  his  will;  he  can  only  persuade  him,  or  induce  his 
help  and  favor  by  offerings  and  kind  treatment.  But  the  possessor 
of  the  common  fetish  does  not  make  offerings  to  it;  the  fetish  is 
under  his  control  and  he  can  compel  the  spirit  within  it  to  serve 
him. 

If  it  should  destroy  him  he  will  punish  it.  The  usual  punish- 
ment is  to  hang  it  in  smoke.  Fetishes  have  a  horror  of  smoke. 

I  do  not  know  that  the  native  ever  punishes  his  ancestor  for 
refusing  a  favor. 

If  he  should  leave  the  skull  in  a  cold  or  wet  place,  or  should 
neglect  offering  food,  the  ancestor  will  suffer  discomfort,  but  the 
discomfort  is  slight  compared  with  the  evil  that  he  will  send  upon 
his  undutif  ul  son  as  a  punishment  for  such  neglect. 

— ^Robert  Milligan,  The  Jungle  Folk  of  West  Africa,  p.  259, 
Revell,  1908. 

THE  CLAY  AND  THE  POTTER 

A  native  evangelist  writes:  "Now  and  then  we  have  spoken 
very  earnestly  with  Mukoma  (a  headman)  and  he  listens  to  us 
seriously  and  sadly,  without  despising  or  laughing  at  us.  But  the 
word  about  the  end  of  the  world  appeared  to  him  incredible,  and 
he  said :  'The  world  will  not  pexish;  and  how  could  it,  it  is  so  firm  ? 
It  will  abide  as  it  has  been  formed.'  Thereupon  I  replied:  THear, 
O  master,  when  a  man  has  built  a  house  or  a  shed,  if  he  wants  to 
tear  down  this  building,  shall  they  withstand  him  and  say:  "We 
cannot  be  torn  down?"  *  " 

— Bishop  J.  T.  Haanilton,   The  Nyasa  Mission,  p.  137, 
Bethlehem  Printing  Co.,  Bethlehem,  Pa.,  19U. 


104  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

QUESTIONS  FOR  CHAPTER  III. 

1.  What  is  the  religious  belief  of  the  natives  of  your  district? 

2.  What  is  their  name  for  God? 

3.  Have  they  a  form  of  worship? 

4.  What  are  some  of  their  superstitions? 
6.  What  do  you  know  about  witchcraft? 

6.  What  are  some  of  the  native  attitudes  toward  illness? 

7.  What  is  the  character  and  equipment  of  the  native  doctor? 

8.  What  is  their  expectation  beyond  death? 

9.  What  equipment  has  your  mission  as  to  medical  work? 

10.  Have  you  records  of  the  attitude  of  the  natives  of  your 
district  when  they  first  heard  the  Gospel? 

11.  Is  your  mission  taking  up  new  work  among  any  untouched 
people? 

12.  If  not,  why  not?  For  there  is  a  reason. 


THE  WIFE  OF  A  CHRISTIAN  MINISTER 


BIBLE  READING  AND  PRAYER 
FOR  CHAPTER  IV. 

Galatians  5:16,  6:1-10   inclusive 
MiCAH  6:6-8 

Prayer 

ALMIGHTY  God,  who  art  the  Giver  of  all 
wisdom;  Enlighten  our  understanding  with 
knowledge  of  right,  and  govern  our  wills 
by  Thy  laws,  that  no  deceit  may  mislead  us,  nor 
temptation  corrupt  us;  that  we  may  always  en- 
deavour to  do  good,  and  to  hinder  evil.  Amidst  all 
the  hopes  and  fears  of  this  world,  take  not  Thy  Holy 
Spirit  from  us;  but  grant  that  our  thoughts  may 
be  fixed  on  Thee,  and  that  we  may  finally  attain 
everlasting  happiness,  for  Jesus  Christ's  sake. 
Amen. — Samuel  Johnson. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


THE    TEN    TYING8 


The  perfect  The   ten   commandments   as   appre- 

t^'^oo.  hended  by  the  white  man  in  their 

ethical  splendor  are  not  so  apprehended  by  the  black 
man  when  God  "ties  him  with  ten  tyings"  in  the 
"early  morning"  of  his  Christian  day.  They  are 
not  then  to  him  the  expression  of  ideals,  they  are 
facts,  definite  laws  of  abstainings,  of  omission  and 
commission.  They  are  the  Eldorado  of  taboo. 
The  They  are  emancipating — the  door  of 

emancipation.  escape  from  a  man-made  yoke.  Given 
a  Father-God,  there  is  no  greater  benefit  that  He 
could  have  conferred  upon  our  pragmatic  Bulu  than 
ten  exphcit  tyings.  The  practice  of  the  law  promises 
at  first  to  be  an  exact  science,  the  perfect  taboo  for 
which  our  Bulu  has  blindly  searched  and  which  is 
here  given  him  with  the  marks  of  Divine  authority. 

"He-Who-made-you,"  says  one  Ibia  of  the 
seventh  "tying,"  "forbids  you  of  this  matter.  The 
slain  who  have  died  because  of  adultery  are  count- 
less." 

Here  is  the  expressed  understanding  of  the  com- 
mandments as  taboo  with  penalty. 

Our  Bulu  "very  much  desires  the  knowledge  of 
those  ten  tyings";  and  such  knowledge — broken — 


108  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

isolated  from  the  body  of  Christian  truth — drifts 
back  into  the  forest,  finding  lodgment  with  in- 
dividuals in  obscure  places.  As  there  have  been 
found  lonely  men  who  pray,  so  there  have  been  found 
those  whose  knowledge  of  God  had  only  one  chapter; 
one  commandment  had  passed  from  hand  to  hand 
and  found  lodgment  at  last  with  a  man  or  a  woman 
who  has  appropriated  it,  and  has  poured  into  the 
practice  of  it  all  the  Bulu  pragmatic  enthusiasm. 
One  of  our  missionaries  itinerating  in  an  obscure 
part  of  the  forest — a  backwoods  of  the  forest — 
found  two  old  women  who  persistently  observed  a 
seventh  day.  These  women  had  a  little  wooden 
calendar  of  seven  holes,  with  a  peg  to  mark  the 
passage  of  the  days,  and  coming  to  the  seventh  day 
they  rested  in  their  houses.  Other  women  might  go 
to  their  gardens  on  that  day,  as  for  them — they  were 
religious.  Any  missionary  can  give  instances  of  such 
appropriation  of  a  fragment  of  truth;  and  will  agree,  I 
think,  that  the  minds  of  such  radicals  have  been  found 
in  general  to  be  open  to  the  deeper  things  of  God. 
There  is  a  very  moving  intensity  in  the  first 
contact  between  such  a  seeker  of  the  true  way,  and 
a  Christian.  "Is  there  a  person  of  God  in  this 
town?"  I  asked  of  a  little  company  in  the  street  of 
an  obscure  village.  "I  am  a  person  of  God,"  said  a 
woman  pressing  forward  and  looking  at  me  with  an 
almost  anguished  timidity  and  with  a  most  passion- 
ate appeal.  Her  husband,  near  by  and  leaning  on  his 
spear,  observed  her  with  an  affectionate  and  con- 
temptuous tolerance. 


THE  TEN  TYINGS  109 

"Not  so,"  said  he  to  me,  "she  is  not  a  person  of 
God,  but  she  desires  to  be;  she  has  learned  a  com- 
mandment." 

This  precious  possession  had  made  that  timid 
black  woman  bold  to  speak  to  the  white  woman,  in 
the  presence  of  contemptuous  men,  and  with  her 
conscious  ignorance  heavy  upon  her. 
Emancipation  The  ten  commandments,  I  say,  are 
from  fsar.  ^^  emancipation.  They  are  an  eman- 

cipation from  fear — that  deep,  sleepless  fear  of  the 
supernatural  which  is  the  great  darkness  of  a  people 
without  God  in  the  world. 

Of  those  things  I  will  let  Ibia  speak  to  you.  Ibia 
was  a  Benga,  of  the  Island  of  Corisco.  He  was  born 
in  something  like  1835.  What  he  was  before  he 
came  to  be  a  Christian,  what  he  would  have  become 
had  there  been  no  mission  school  on  the  island,  none 
of  you  can  conceive.  Look  over  the  edge,  but  do  not 
suppose  that  you  see  the  bottom  of  the  pit.  The 
heathen  knows  his  own  bitterness,  the  white  man 
may  not.  Christ  knows.  But  there  was  a  school 
on  Corisco  and  a  man  had  a  chance.  Ibia  became  a 
Christian;  by  the  painful  efforts  which  lie  between 
the  primitive  black  man  and  an  intelligent  ministry 
he  became  a  minister;  by  a  self-control  which  Christ 
alone  can  appreciate  this  black  man  lived  a  godly 
life  among  his  people.  Not  born  to  ideals  as  you  and 
I  were,  he  achieved  them;  he  furnished  his  mind,  he 
read,  he  thought,  he  wrote  a  book,  if  you  please — 
an  argument  against  native  superstitions  and  the 
vices  of  his  tribe.  In  this  book  he  attacked  murder 


110  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

and  gossiping,  adultery  and  want  of  courtesy,  modes 
of  building  and  the  having  of  property  in  common. 
From  the  headings  of  his  chapters  it  is  plain  to  see 
that  he  raked  with  a  rake  of  many  teeth.  I  have  a 
translation  of  his  book  made  for  me  by  one  Myongo, 
a  contemporary  of  Ibia's — like  himself  a  Christian, 
now  an  old  man.  This  translation  is  from  the  Benga 
into  the  quaint  English  which  survives  among 
beachmen  of  a  certain  age,  those  who  were  taught 
in  American  and  English  mission  schools  before  the 
partition  of  Africa.  And  this  is  what  we  have  from 
these  two  black  men  about  the  emancipation  of 
their  kind  from  the  things  of  darkness: 

"The  things  of  Magic  are  the  gods  of  the  ungodly; 
fearing  of  these  things  tells  plainly  that  you  have  not 
taken  God,  that  he  is  your  confidential  God  who 
cannot  suffer  you  to  have  an  accident  without  a  plan 
coming  from  him.  If  you  be  his  lover  and  his  true 
worshiper  you  will  no  more  fear  these  things.  They 
are  not.  Also,  if  they  are  to  be,  they  would  not  be 
able  to  do  you  a  thing  whether  good  or  bad,  God  will 
not  consent.  Also  if  God  wants  to  give  you  a  good 
thing  he  will  not  handed  it  to  the  spirits,  he  will 
handed  it  to  the  persons  which  he  sends — that  is, 
the  angels." 

This  triumphant  assertion,  so  quaintly  termed, 
is  a  black  man's  proclamation  of  emancipation  to  his 
people,  based  upon  the  first  tying  which  says,  "Thou 
shalt  have  no  other  Gods  before  me";  and  upon  the 
second  tying  which  says,  "do  not  make  a  fetish 
charm." 


THE  TEN  TYINGS  111 

And  if  these  tyings  are  an  emancipation  from  the 
fear  of  supernatural  perils — if  they  are  as  the  arm  of 
God  barring  from  the  path  of  Ilis  children  the  evil 
things  of  the  dark — so,  too,  are  they  an  emancipation 
from  the  sorceries,  the  charms,  and  the  machinations 
of  inimical  men.  They  make  a  place  of  sanctuary 
for  the  hunted  and  the  haunted:  a  sanctuary  for 
refugees  from  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death. 

How  many  such  refugees  I  have  seen  rush  into 
this  sanctuary;  and  behind  these  I  have  heard  the 
clanging  of  the  door  of  promise — "showing  mercies 
unto  thousands  of  them."  Here  is  Ze  Zhom,  with 
the  scar  above  her  knee  that  her  one-time  husband 
made,  not  for  ornament  but  for  malice — a  symbol 
of  taboo.  Marriage  was  to  be  for  Ze  Zhom  forever 
taboo.  And  here  she  is  in  the  sanctuary,  the  Chris- 
tian wife  of  a  Christian  man. 

Here  is  that  Eyinga  who  moved  once  under  the 
shadow  of  a  spell.  Her  husband,  "two  marriages 
back,"  still  hated  her  and  continually  made  a  charm 
against  her.  She  came  to  see  the  white  woman,  and 
"look  at  my  body,"  said  she,  "I  dry  up,  I  neither 
eat  nor  sleep.  I  know  and  my  neighbors  know,  that 
I  shall  certainly  die."  She,  too,  found  sanctuary  in 
the  commandment;  she  heard  the  gate  clang  be- 
tween her  and  the  pursuing  hatred. 

Here  are  those  little  ones,  the  children  of  the 
people  of  the  tribe  of  God,  they  have  been  suffered 
to  come  into  the  sanctuary.  There  is  no  amulet 
hung  upon  those  little  bodies  that  were  bom  without 
the  aid  of  charms ;  it  is  said  of  them  that  God  gave 


112  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

them.  God  standing  at  the  door  of  Hfe  has  ushered 
them  in.  They  live  under  the  divine  protection. 
The  mother  of  such  a  child,  if  the  child  die,  is  here 
sufTered  to  mourn  her  little  one  in  peace.  No  dark 
imputation  is  put  upon  that  death,  no  accusation 
of  witchcraft  laid  at  the  mother's  door. 

In  this  sanctuary  the  barren  woman  and  the 
widow  are  at  peace.  Here  might  Ndongo  Mabale 
have  taken  refuge,  whose  grave  is  in  a  far  country 
among  strangers. 

The  basis  of  Again,   the   commandments   are   an 

a  sex  equality.  emancipation  from  a  sex-bondage. 
Man-made  tyings  always  take  account  of  sex — 
being  a  woman,  the  woman  must  do  thus  and  so. 
There  is  food  which  she  must  not  eat,  objects  which 
she  must  not  see,  words  which  she  must  not  speak, 
acts  which  she  must  not  perform — ^yes,  and  I  would 
almost  say — thoughts  which  she  must  not  think. 
She  must  not  think  herself  clever,  or  important, 
or  even  necessary.  "How  should  I  know;  I  am 
stupid  as  a  hen!"  This  is  the  ultimate  fruit  of  those 
man-made  tyings  which  have  thrust  her  into  a 
groove  of  "vain  abstainings,"  as  Ibia  says,  based 
upon  an  ignoble  thought  of  sex.  Now  it  appears 
that  God  has  tied  his  children  with  an  equal  tying, 
and  this  sense  of  a  common  honor  is  one  of  those 
elements  in  her  religious  experience  which  contributes 
to  the  new  dignity  of  the  African  woman .    Says  Ibia : 

"The  people  do  say, — 'A  woman  and  a  man  are 
two  different  tribes.'  This  is  not  so,  woman  and  the 
man  are  but  of  one  nation. 


THE  TEN  TYINGS  113 

"Human  beings. 
Of  town  and  streets. 
Their  one  root. 
Also  their  one  end. 

Let  the  woman  know  everything,  that  which  the 
man  knows  only;  that  which  she  herself  does  not 
want  to  learn;  and  let  her  eat  that  which  the  man 
eats  also,  except  herself  refuse.  Let  them  not  be  kept 
in  ignorance  any  more,  let  them  not  be  deprived  of 
good  things. 

Thus  the  law  has  made  the  woman  of  an  equal 
freedom  with  her  husband.  "That  which  cannot 
offend  a  man,  it  could  not  also  offend  a  woman.  ' 
And  to  outraged  manhood  defending  its  prerogative 
the  merciless  Ibia  writes:  "I  know  that  they  shall 
ask  me  that  I  should  shew  them  the  nobility  of  a 
woman.  I  will  also  ask  them  that  they  should  shew 
me  the  nobility  of  a  man." 

The  tools  The  girl  who  is  taken  in  marriage  to 

of  a  craft.  another  than  her  native  tribe,  and 

who  is  reared  in  the  house  of  one  of  the  elder  wives 
of  her  husband,  will  be  given  from  time  to  time  at 
the  hands  of  that  elder  woman  the  tools  of  her 
domestic  craft.  There  will  be  for  her  a  scoop  net  of 
a  corded  plantain  fibre  and  with  a  withy  rim,  little 
baskets  for  fishing,  pots  of  clay  that  have  been  dried 
in  the  sun  and  baked  in  the  fire — "the  things  of 
women  who  are  wives."  These  tangible  tools  will 
be  given  to  the  girl,  with  many  rules  of  conduct — 
"the  custom  of  our  tribe"  which  is  not  the  custom 
of  her  father's  tribe. 


114  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

The  rules  And    the    regulation    of    conduct    is 

of  custom.  lodged  in  custom;  of  that  girl  it  is 

expected  that  she  will  grow  daily  in  the  grace  of 
the  custom  of  her  husband's  tribe. 

In  some  such  way  does  the  Bulu  conceive  his 
initiation  into  that  new  tribe  which  is  the  Tribe  of 
God.  With  a  change  of  tribe  he  expects  a  change  of 
custom;  the  ten  commandments  are  the  regulation 
of  that  custom.  Almost,  so  objectively  does  he  con- 
ceive his  religion,  they  are  the  tools  of  his  craft — 
of  his  new  art  of  living.  He  takes  possession  of  them 
with  a  pride  and  a  manifest  joy,  and  he  applies 
himself  to  the  use  of  them.  They  are  intricate. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  custom  of  his  country  to 
prepare  him  for  their  use;  they  do  not  belong,  as 
he  says  of  familiar  ideas,  to  "the  things  of  birth." 
But  he  has  greatly  desired  them,  he  has  acquired 
them  with  a  painful  effort  of  the  memory  and  it 
remains  to  practise  them.  On  the  business  of  the 
minutiae  of  the  ten  commandments  he  will  make 
long  journeys  lest  he  fail  in  a  jot  or  tittle  of  their  use. 

I  see  in  my  heart  an  old  woman, — strange  to  me 
but  for  her  familiar  aspect  of  a  woman  beat  upon 
by  life  and  sorrow, — a  woman  w  ho  had  borne  and 
buried  many  children  and  who  looked  in  upon  me  of 
that  afternoon  with  a  beautiful,  controlled  eager- 
ness. Three  days  she  had  walked,  sleeping  two  nights 
by  the  way,  to  speak  to  the  white  woman  about  the 
eighth  commandment — the  eighth  tying,  she  said. 
And  this  she  said: 

"My  town  is  toward  the  beach, — ^j^ou  do  not  know 


THE  TEN  TYINGS  115 

my  town;  not  another  person  of  the  tribe  of  God 
lives  in  my  town.  I  alone  am  of  that  tribe  in  the 
eyes  of  the  people,  and  some  of  the  women  of  my 
town  have  said  to  me,  *We  are  watching  the  walking 
that  you  walk.  If  it  is  indeed  a  good  walking  and  it 
is  a  straight  path,  we,  too,  will  arise  and  follow  after 
you.'  For  this  cause  my  heart  is  hung  up,  lest  it  be 
that  in  my  ignorance  I  spoU  one  of  the  ten  tyings 
in  the  eyes  of  my  towns-people.  So  when  my  son — 
not  that  he  is  indeed  the  son  of  my  body,  for  all 
those  are  dead,  but  he  is  another  son  of  my  hus- 
band's, who  sees  me  as  his  mother — when  this  young 
man  asked  me  to  keep  the  cutlass  he  found,  I  had 
a  doubt.  He  thrust  the  cutlass  in  the  bark  of  the 
wall  and  he  said,  'Ah,  mother,  keep  it  for  me  while 
I  go  on  a  journey';  and  I  asked  him  many  questions 
about  the  cutlass.  Because  he  found  that  cutlass 
in  the  forest.  He  did  not  buy  it  so  that  he  was 
able  to  say  that  it  was  his  own  cutlass.  It  is  a  true 
word  that  he  found  it  in  the  forest,  as  if  perhaps  it 
might  be  the  cutlass  that  a  dwarf  had  lost.  Even 
when  he  had  told  me  all  these  things,  hiding  nothing, 
I  doubted.  I  said  in  my  heart,  'This  cutlass — is  it 
a  thing  which  a  Christian  woman  may  keep  in  her 
house.?  Does  it  spoil  the  eighth  tying?'  And  be- 
cause of  my  ignorance  and  the  women  of  my  town 
who  examine  the  things  of  God,  I  arose  and  came  to 
you.  I  have  slept  two  nights  by  the  way.  You 
certainly  very  much  understand  the  command- 
ments, and  I  ask  you  to  open  this  thing  to  me!" 
Thus  spoke  Awu  Ding,  looking  at  me  very  hope- 


116  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

fully,  very  wistfully, — sure  that  the  white  woman 
could  tell  her  how  to  be  the  perfect  Christian.  K 
this  were  ten  times  a  study  book,  I  must  still  pause 
to  salute  from  the  heart  that  meek,  old  woman  who 
ordered  with  such  patience  her  walk  and  conversa- 
tion. 

The  basis  of  ^^  every  qualified  Christian  many 

the  technique  of  such  women  come,  and  men  come; 
vmg.  T5yjjgj.eygp  ^|jg  Word  of  God  has  been 
accepted  in  our  region  there  has  begun  to  be  a 
busyness  about  the  practice  of  religion.  The  tech- 
nique of  the  art  of  Christian  living  has  always 
proved  to  be  a  matter  of  immediate  excitement. 
The  little  brown  hut  where  the  foremost  Christian 
lives,  the  man  or  woman  most  approved  as  expert 
by  the  neighbors,  becomes  a  sort  of  school  of  tech- 
nique. 

The  little  Those  little  huts  which  house   the 

academies.  master  Christians — how  well  we  mis- 

sionaries know  them!  Strangers  and  aliens  stoop 
to  enter  into  them;  there  is  always  need  of  more  little 
stools  in  them;  the  outlandish  headdresses  from  the 
backwoods  congregate  there;  there  is  a  place  by 
those  firesides  for  the  beaded  and  bridled  Ntum 
people,  for  the  little  dwarf  people,  for  whoever 
will  be  inquiring  about  the  things  of  God  and  the 
technique  of  the  Christian  life. 

The  master  In  such  huts  as  these  there  will  be  a 

Christian.  murmur  of  voices  and  grouped  eager 

faces  turned  on  one  face, — the  disciplined  face  of  an 
old  woman,  the  face  of  a  man  whose  arrogance  has 


THE  TEN  TYINGS  117 

suffered  control,  the  face  of  some  young  creature 
quick  with  the  facility  of  youth.  Here  the  things 
of  the  new  tribe  are  applied  to  the  things  of  gain, 
of  sex,  and  of  fetish;  to  the  things  of  the  family, 
of  the  town,  of  the  garden,  of  trade,  of  hunting — ^yes, 
and  to  the  things  of  marriage,  of  birth,  and  of  death. 

"The  tying  that  ties  you  not  to  make  a  charm, — 
does  that  forbid  a  charm  to  hold  your  husband's 
love?  For  he  did  exceedingly  love  me  when  I  was 
new,  and  now  he  has  that  girl  from  Nkole  he  does 
not  so  much  as  eat  my  food!  And  my  mother  knows 
a  charm  for  this  thing,  only  I  said,  'Before  I  make 
that  charm  that  you  know,  I  must  ask  a  person  of 
God,  I  am  a  Christian  and  am  I  able  to  make  that 
charm.?'  " 

"And  that  tying  about  the  day  of  Sunday,  how 
may  you  do  when  the  headman  has  sent  you  to  the 
beach  with  a  load  of  rubber?  Himself  he  walks  in 
the  caravan,  and  in  his  heart  is  such  a  hunger  for 
goods  that  he  hates  to  sleep  at  night,  let  alone  rest 
of  a  Sunday." 

Of  course,  you  know  that  you  must  not  work  in 
your  garden  of  a  Sunday — but  may  you  not  shell 
peanuts?  For  the  guests  are  many  and  your  husband 
wants  them  to  eat  well. 

And  the  difficult  seventh  commandment, — ^how 
does  it  bear  upon  you  and  the  man  to  whom  your 
husband  has  loaned  you  these  many  moons  and  you 
love  him:  now  that  you  are  a  Christian  woman 
must  you  bar  the  door  to  him? 

"Before  I  became  a  person  of  the  tribe  of  God  it 


118  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

was  my  custom  to  help  my  sister  with  her  peanuts. 
Always  she  sent  me  a  message  from  her  town  that 
I  must  come  to  help  her.  We  two,  we  must  harvest 
her  peanuts.  And  now  I  am  a  Christian,  still  she 
sends  me  that  message.  I  ask  you  who  are  strong  in 
the  things  of  God,  am  I  able  to  go  to  help  my  sister?" 

Ah,  the  wise  old  black  face  that  is  turned  on  the 
young  black  face! 

"Those  days  back,  before  you  were  a  person  of 
God,  had  you  a  sweetheart  in  that  town  where  your 
sister  is  married.''" 

"It  is  as  you  say.  There  is  a  man  in  my  sister's 
husband's  town;  he  and  I  were  as  you  say." 

"Do  not  go  to  that  town  where  you  used,  when 
you  were  ignorant,  continually  to  spoil  the  tying 
that  is  the  seventh  tying!  I  who  am  a  woman  of 
God,  I  tell  you  that  the  path  to  your  sister's  town  is 
closed  to  you;  that  path  is  a  path  of  danger." 

In  such  little  huts  how  many  sorrows  are  opened 
up  and  how  many  iniquities,  how  many  autobiog- 
raphies flow  on  and  on,  out-living  the  fire  on  the 
floor!  Out  of  such  little  huts  how  there  go  con- 
tinually men  and  women  who  have  been  enriched 
by  some  little  portion  of  that  divine  wisdom  which 
has  a  spokesman  there!  A  Bulu  proverb  says,  "The 
rich  man's  town  does  not  release  the  treasure."  Yet 
in  the  town  of  many  a  headman  there  is  a  continued 
release  of  treasure  at  the  hands  of  some  humble 
old  woman,  or  the  hands  of  an  unconsidered  boy — 
"poor  bodies"  who  yet  possess  the  tools,  and  in 
some  measure  the  skill,  of  the  new  way  of  life. 


THE  TEN  TYINGS  119 

And  if  a  little  you  begin  to  think  of 

A  discipline.  i 

the    commandments    as    a    precious 

possession  of  the  Bulu,  and  as  an  emancipation, 
you  must  think  of  them,  too,  as  a  discipline.  You 
must  remember  upon  what  untrained  shoulders 
their  yoke  falls.  We  who  have  borne  the  yoke  from 
our  youth  up,  and  our  fathers  and  mothers  before 
us,  the  custom  of  whose  country  is  so  colored  by  the 
ten  commandments  that  we  may  not  break  some 
of  them  without  fear  of  imprisonment,  or  others 
without  incurring  the  adverse  opinion  of  mankind, 
or  others  without  self-scorn — how  may  we  know  of 
the  check  of  that  yoke  upon  the  wild  heart  of  a 
Bantu  woman,  of  a  Bantu  man!  There  is  no  tradi- 
tion in  that  blood  to  mate  with  the  ten  tyings. 
There  is  no  common  consent  in  that  town  to  the 
maintenance  of  them.  There  is  no  conventional 
shame  at  any  breach  of  them.  There  is  only  a  willing 
and  personal  abnegation, — a  submission  in  mid- 
career  without  parley  and  without  condition.  They 
are  accepted  with  the  simplest  confidence.  There 
is  not,  in  the  initial  phase  of  acceptance,  any  appre- 
hension of  the  long  road  that  stretches  or  of  any 
lapse. 

Amenta!  As    discipline:    consider    them   first 

discipline.  g^g   g^   mental   discipline.  If   it   were 

only  the  memorizing  of  them,  there  is  for  the  adult 
Bulu  who  does  not  read  and  who  has  no  mental 
precedent  for  their  content,  a  sustained,  most  intent 
effort  in  the  memorizing  of  the  commandments. 
Men  who  can  tell  the  nature  of  the  dowries  paid  for 


120  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

every  girl  and  every  woman  and  every  grandmother 
in  the  neighborhood, — and  that  is  to  remember 
curious  lots  and  assortments  of  dogs  and  guns  and 
goats  and  sheep  and  dog-bells  and  girls  and  sheets 
of  brass  and  coils  of  brass  and  the  little  pieces  of 
iron  tied  in  bunches  of  ten  that  are  currency  for 
women, — men  who  can  recall  the  testimony  of  wit- 
nesses long  dead  to  adventures  long  past,  must  make 
by  a  painful  effort  a  niche  in  the  mind  for  the  novel 
content  of  the  commandments.  Never  a  man  of 
their  tribe  spake  thus;  there  is  no  ready-made 
receptacle  for  this  possession.  The  attention  of  how 
many  tattooed  faces  I  have  seen  turned  inward  with 
an  almost  piteous  intensity  while  they  conned  the 
ten  commandments!  How  I  have  seen  a  man  in  his 
prime  take  his  lesson  from  a  school  boy — blunder, 
return,  repeat,  and  achieve!  There,  by  the  light  of 
the  night  fire  in  his  own  palaver  house  at  the  head 
of  his  own  town,  arrogance  was  put  aside  for  a 
meek  and  lowly  effort.  Women  I  have  seen  go 
down  into  the  stress  of  a  repetition  of  the  ten  com- 
mandments trembling;  I  have  heard  the  beatings 
of  their  hearts  as  they  took  the  diiBBcult  places  in 
that  rough  way,  and  I  have  seen  them  come  to  the 
end  short  of  breath  and  triumphant. 

Some  of  them  I  have  heard  say,  "Certainly  the 
power  of  God  has  helped  me  in  this  thing  that  is  so 
hard!" 

How  many  women  have  come  to  say,  "Pray  with 
me  that  I  may  learn  a  certain  tying.  I  am  stupid 
as  a  hen  and  that  tying  kills  me.  Other  things  I  can 


THESE  MEN  ARE  HUNTING  A  RUNAWAY  GIRL 
A  common  event  in  Bantu 


THE  TEN  TYINGS  121 

say,  but  this  one  about  the  day  of  Sabbath,  or  this 
one  about  the  things  of  magic,  it  will  kill  me!" 

Mrs.  W.  C.  Johnston  tells  of  one  old  woman,  not 
slow  in  faith  or  in  works,  but  whose  struggle  with  the 
memorizing  of  the  ten  commandments  always 
yielded  this  fruit,  "I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the 
life."  This  was  the  only  one  of  the  ten  command- 
ments that  old  Abiaingon  ever  learned  by  heart. 
Ask  her  for  any  one  from  the  first  to  the  tenth,  and 
she  brought  out  of  the  wallet  of  her  mental  poverty 
her  unique  gold  piece,  with  its  known  image  and 
superscription. 

So  much  for  the  initial  effort  of  memorizing. 
There  remains  the  never-ending  mental  discipline 
of  application,  the  nice  fitting  of  the  tyings  to  the 
things  of  the  family,  of  the  town,  of  hunting,  of 
trade — to  the  things  of  women  and  gain  and  fetish. 
The  new  code  accepted  in  such  simplicity — "A 
road  to  run  on,"  as  a  young  Bantu  said  to  Frederick 
Amot, — ^proves  to  be  of  universal  application.  We 
are  back  again  in  the  brown  huts  of  the  master 
Christians — where  the  poor,  untutored  mind  is 
broken  to  unaccustomed  uses,  where  women  stupid 
as  hens  are  driven  to  become  wise  as  serpents. 

"Thou  shalt  not  kill— another's  woman !"  declares 
old  Mpashima  with  emphasis. 

"No! — No!"  cries  out  Bekalli,  "don't  lose  your- 
self on  that  path;  go  back  again!" 

And  there  between  these  two  followers  of  the  new 
way,  who  so  sincerely  desire  to  do  the  will  of  the  Father, 
there  is  the  renewed  effort  to  know  of  the  doctrineo 


122  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

A  physical  The    Commandments     are     tremen- 

discipUne.  dously     a     physical     discipline.  For 

the  black  woman  as  well  as  for  the  black  man  they 
are  a  daily  physical  discipline.  Now  is  the  body 
troubled!  There  is  a  crucifixion  here,  as  Christ 
knows.  This  struggle — how  often  with  ignoble 
things! — is  not  ignoble,  this  look  of  a  broken  body 
is  not  without  honor.  Myself,  who  have  seen  the 
iron  of  the  seventh  commandment  enter  the  soul 
of  so  many  women — I  know  its  power.  In  the 
practice  of  this  commandment  I  have  seen  girls — 
the  wives  of  old  men  who  were  oflFered  daily  con- 
solations both  public  and  secret — I  have  seen  such 
girls  take  upon  their  young  shoulders  the  yoke  of 
the  seventh  commandment  when,  by  virtue  of  their 
enslaved  circumstance,  it  was  the  cross  of  celibacy. 
I  have  seen  Bulu  women,  as  maternal  as  any  women 
sacrifice  the  hope  of  children  to  the  observance  of 
this  commandment.  Until  I  think  I  know  a  little  of 
how  much  a  Bulu  woman  means  when  she  sighs 
and  says, 

"The  seventh  tying — ^it  is  certainly  strong!" 
Certainly  strong  it  is.  More  I  cannot  say  of  this 
matter  to  white  readers,  imless  I  may  tell  them  of 
that  young  Bulu  woman  of  whom  Mrs.  Love  says, 
that  she  was  speaking  as  a  master  Christian  to  a 
group  of  women.  These  were  saying  of  the  ninth 
tying  that  it  was  easy,  but  of  the  seventh  tying  that 
God  had  made  a  mistake  in  tying  them  "wnth  that 
seventh  tying!  These  poor  bodies  were  thinking  that 
the  seventh  tying  would  be  their  Waterloo. 


THE  TEN  TYINGS  123 

But  "No,"  Mejo  told  them;  and  she  told  them — 
"I  like  to  call  the  seventh  God's  love  commandment. 
When  we  have  a  friend  whom  we  very  much  love  and 
who  very  much  loves  us  we  are  able  to  ask  more 
of  him  than  of  an  acquaintance.  Like  that  it  is  with 
God.  K  He  is  the  friend  we  most  love,  and  we  love 
Him  as  we  should  love  Him,  we  will  be  given  strength 
to  keep  the  seventh  commandment." 

So  much  for  the  thought  of  a  Bulu  woman  about 
this  difficult  matter.  She  knew,  and  I  ask  you  to 
believe,  that  the  Bulu  Christian  who  is  to  stand  fast 
must  endure  a  discipline  of  the  body  which  is  without 
respite.  And  upon  the  faces  of  such  as  these  there 
comes  to  be  as  if  it  were  a  harness — a  perceptible, 
spiritual  harness — the  bands  of  a  strong  control. 
Amoral  Again — the  tyings  are  a  moral  dis- 

discipUne.  ciphne.  This  truth  which  is  so  trite 

to  us — ^how  little  it  is  trite  to  the  man  who  first 
salutes  his  own  soul!  "We  knew," says  Minkoe  Ntem, 
of  the  days  before  the  knowledge  of  the  things  of 
God,  "that  a  man  is  two  men — the  man  of  the  body 
and  the  other  man — that  the  things  of  man  are  of 
two  tribes — the  things  of  the  body  and  the  things  of 
the  heart.  We  knew,  but  we  did  not  altogether  know." 

Now  it  would  appear  that  Zambe,  who  altogether 
knows,  has  devised  a  code  for  the  things  of  the  heart. 
Having  broken  the  mind  to  the  effort  of  the  com- 
mandments and  the  body  to  the  abnegation  of 
them,  there  is  still  the  wayward  heart  to  be  bent  to 
them;  and  "the  things  of  the  heaH,"  say  the  Bulu, 
"are  very  strong." 


124  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

The  Bulu  does  not  appreciate  the  commandments 
on  diflFerent  levels  and  take  the  breach  of  certain 
of  them  to  be  catastrophic,  and  the  breach  of  the 
others  to  be  minor.  Malice,  envy,  hatred,  these 
passions  of  the  heart  are  big  with  him.  They  have 
been  so  long  pragmatic  and  they  have  in  his  cus- 
tom worn  so  many  paths  to  action,  so  many  short 
cuts  to  sudden  and  violent  deeds,  that  he  knows 
their  potential  power.  I  will  not  be  saying  that 
this  sense  of  their  power  is  a  faculty  of  conscience; 
it  is  a  deposit  of  experience.  Without  an  intelligence 
of  sin,  he  has  seen  that  the  fruit  of  en\^  is  death. 
One  tying  ties  him  not  to  kill — "I  understand!" 
agrees  he  in  the  old  formula.  With  another  tying 
he  is  tied  not  to  envy — and  again  he  agrees.  And 
of  envy  he  declares  that  it  is  present  with  him: 
"I  very  much  know  that  thing."  The  Bulu  woman 
has  a  fire  of  envy  in  her  heart.  How  many  have 
sighed  to  me  of  this. 

"I  envy  another's  beauty";  "I  envy  another's 
husband — another's  youth";  and  always  in  the 
mouth  of  a  barren  woman,  'T  envy  another's  child." 

Malice  too,  and  hatred — these  passions  are  not 
obscure  to  them.  Many  women  on  many  days  have 
come  to  my  door  to  speak  of  the  things  of  malice. 

"My  tongue  destroys  me;  my  children  and  my 
husband  run  from  my  tongue."  'T  quarrel  with  a 
wife  of  my  husband;  I  rise  in  the  morning  not  to 
quarrel,  and  when  the  sun  is  in  the  middle,  while  it 
is  not  yet  afternoon,  I  quarrel!  Is  there  power  with 
God  for  this  matter?" 


THE  TEN  TYINGS  125 

Is  there  power  "Is  there  power  with  God  for  this 
for  these  things?  matter?"  ask  the  novices  of  the 
master  Christians  in  the  httle  brown  huts.  "I 
commit  adultery — I  am  a  coward — I  am  envious — 
is  there  power?" 

And  there  is  an  answer  to  this  voiced  human 
frailty:  "There  is  power,"  declares  Asala,  cast  off 
by  a  cruel  husband  and  by  him  persecuted  after 
fashions  of  which  it  is  a  shame  to  so  much  as  speak — 
surrounded  by  enemies  and  by  tempters,  infinitely 
lonely  in  her  isolated  career  of  virtue,  trembling  at 
night  in  her  little  bark  hut  in  that  village  of  the 
backwoods  where  she  alone  was  a  person  of  the 
tribe  of  God.  "There  is  certainly  Power  with  God!" 
says  the  triumphant  Asala,  who  curbed  her  own 
body  and  withstood  the  contradiction  of  sinners  for 
two  tens  of  moons  and  four  more  moons,  when 
God  showed  her  a  plain  path  to  an  honorable 
marriage. 

"There  is  power,"  says  old  Nyunga,  remembering 
the  day  the  black  soldier  knocked  her  down.  He 
had  set  her  to  catch  a  chicken  for  him .  "Is  it  my 
chicken  that  I  should  catch  it  for  you?  Who  are 
you  that  I  should  break  for  you  the  eighth  command- 
ment?" And  in  the  power  of  God  Nyunga  suffered 
the  expected  violence. 

"There  is  power,"  says  Ngwa,  who  was  a  man  of 
sudden  and  blind  rage  until  God  put  a  hand  of  re- 
straint upon  that  spirit  of  anger,  so  that  now  when 
Ngwa  is  crossed  he  counts  out  his  level  words  as  a 
miser  parts  with  gold. 


126  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

"There  is  power,"  claims  little  middle-aged  Ndek 
Zik,  looking  at  you  with  that  mild  radiance  which 
is  the  little  lighthouse  of  her  neighborhood.  You 
must  know,  says  Ndek  Zik,  that  she  was,  before  her 
heart  turned  to  God,  of  a  peculiar  wickedness.  Yes, 
you  are  told  that  of  a  peculiar  wickedness  was  Ndek 
Zik  until  the  ten  commandments  laid  a  check  upon 
that  wild  career,  and  the  power  of  God  made  the 
great  change  that  you  see. 

"There  is  indeed  power,"  say  one  and  another  of 
the  disciplined  ones  to  those  wistful  apprentices 
with  whom  evil  is  so  present.  "God  will  give  the 
power."  The  simplest  old  woman  who  has  learned 
her  ten  tyings  by  months  of  effort  will  tell  you  that 
these  things  exceed  the  strength  of  mankind,  but 
that  Zambe  gives  strength  for  the  keeping  of  the 
commandments.  This  news  passes  from  hand  to 
hand;  v/omen  tell  it  to  women,  and  wives  to  hus- 
bands and  children  to  parents,  that  Zambe  who 
gave  the  tyings  gives  strength  for  their  keeping. 
And  this  claim  is  not  to  be  taken  on  blind  faith  as 
the  commandments  are;  it  is  a  spontaneous  account 
of  personal  experience,  and  it  is  pointed  with  tangible 
example. 

I  remember  one  Wanji,  who  was  a  year  gone  far 
inland.  He  was  hunting  an  ivory — that  is,  he  was 
sitting  in  a  village  of  the  backwoods  where  the  head- 
man owned  an  ivory,  the  express  object  of  Wanji's 
desire  and  of  his  bargaining.  Before  he  left  home  he 
gave  his  little  fortune,  his  collection  of  marketable 
objects,  to  the  care  of  Ze,  a  wife  of  his  who  was  a 


THE  TEN  TYINGS  127 

Christian.  Two  rainy  seasons  and  two  dry  seasons 
passed — the  measure  of  the  white  man's  year — 
before  Wanji  returned,  and  when  he  came  home  one 
of  his  wives  was  missing,  she  had  run  away.  Another 
wife  had  a  child.  Wanji  did  not  wonder  at  either  of 
these  women.  But  much  he  marveled  at  Ze  who  still 
"sat  in  her  house"  caring  for  his  possessions.  They 
were  all  packed  under  her  bamboo  bed.  And  of  her 
the  neighbors  said: 

"Every  night  of  the  many  nights  you  have 
journeyed  Ze  had  sat  in  her  hut,  as  you  see  her  today 
so  has  she  continually  sat.  She  has  gone  to  her 
garden,  she  has  cooked  her  food  in  her  pot,  she  has 
eaten,  she  has  slept,  just  as  you  see.  We  have  no 
word  to  tell  you  of  Ze," 

Then  Wanji  put  on  his  felt  hat  that  was  made  in 
Germany  and  that  was  his  badge  of  office,  for  he 
was  a  little  of  a  headman;  and  he  put  a  lad  before 
him  in  the  path  with  a  lantern — it  was  broad  day, 
but  this  was  ostentation — and  he  made  a  call  at  the 
town  of  the  white  man.  He  looked  what  he  was, — 
the  old  type  of  headman, — and  without  preamble  he 
said: 

"I  have  come  to  tell  you  that  I  wonder  at  my 
wife  Ze.  She  is  a  person  of  the  tribe  of  God.  I  have 
been  inland  two  rainy  seasons  and  two  dry  seasons — 
yet  that  woman  has  kept  the  commandments  of 
God.  This  thing  I  know  was  never  done  by  the 
strength  of  a  black  woman,  though  a  white  woman 
might  be  able  to  do  even  this.  I  see  the  white  women 
that  they  are  in  a  tribe  by  themselves  (literally. 


128  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

unique).  Only  the  strength  of  God  is  able  for  such  a 
strange  thing  with  a  black  woman.  And  I  have  come 
to  tell  you  that  I  marvel  at  the  power  of  God  for  this 
thing  that  I  have  seen  in  my  wife  Ze.  I  agree  that 
it  is  a  good  thing  to  be  a  Christian.  But  as  for  my- 
self, my  own  heart  is  too  much  with  the  things  of 
this  world."  And  he  went  away. 

I  tell  you  this  to  illustrate  the  practical  sense  in 
which  the  Bulu  associate  the  power  of  God  with  the 
practice  of  the  commandments.  And  I  tell  you 
further  of  Ze  and  of  Ndek  Zik  that  they  so  com- 
mended their  religion  in  their  conduct  that  their 
husbands  came,  after  rainy  seasons  and  dry  seasons, 
to  be  among  their  converts. 

Surely  you  will  be  agreeing  that  these  children 
struggle  with  old  enemies  not  unknown  to  yourself. 
And  you  will  be  agreeing  with  them  that  if  they  con- 
quer it  will  be  by  the  power  of  God.  *Listen  to 
Casalis  and  his  friend  the  chief  of  the  Basutos 
talking  together  in  secret  at  night,  as  Jesus  did  with 
Nicodemus  in  the  day  of  Nicodemus.  And  like  the 
latter  twain,  so  Casalis  and  the  chief  are  speaking  of 
the  things  of  God.  Side  by  side  they  lie  upon  mats 
through  the  night  of  stars. 

"The  chief  was  greatly  struck,"  says  Casalis,  "by 
the  commandments  of  the  decalogue.  'That,'  said 
he,  'is  written  in  all  our  hearts.  We  knew  nothing 
about  the  Sabbath,  but  we  knew  it  was  wicked  to  be 
ungrateful  and  to  be  disobedient  to  parents,  to  rob, 
to  kill,  to  commit  adultery.'  "    And  this  he  said, 

*  My  Life  in  Basutoland,  by  Eugene  Casalis,  p.  222. 


THE  TEN  TYINGS  129 

that  wise  black  man,  upon  whose  heart  there  was  so 
legible  a  writing  from  the  finger  of  God : 

"To  do  good  is  like  rolling  a  rock  to  the  top  of  a 
mountain;  as  for  the  evil,  it  comes  about  of  itself; 
the  rock  finds  it  easy  to  roll  to  the  bottom." 
The  inner  There  is  our  Bulu,  with  his  shoulder 

vision.  iq  i\iQ  rolling  stone  of  the  ten  tyings. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  Bulu  heart  to  endure.  If 
the  Bulu  Christians  endure,  it  is  as  seeing  Him  who 
is  invisible.  There  is  certainly  in  these  lowly  hearts 
an  inner  vision,  and  an  inner  voice.  If  we  who  are 
strangers  to  that  heart,  cannot  know  all  the  bitter- 
ness of  certain  practical  abnegations  required  of 
it  by  Christ,  neither  can  we  enter  into  all  the  joy  of 
that  inner  revelation.  Christ  is  the  Word  that  was 
with  God,  and  came  to  dwell  with  the  Bulu  and  is 
the  Bulu  word.  "I  give  you  an  example,"  says  the 
Christ  of  the  Bulu,  to  the  Bulu  Christian. 

Many  times  I  have  been  sure  of  this  revelation. 
"Tell  me  the  way  of  God  in  this  difficult  matter," 
says  a  woman  to  me  of  something  very  foreign  to 
the  white  woman.  For  this  I  have  a  black  Christian 
to  counsel  me  in  these  clinics.  And  sometimes  when 
I  am  alone  I  cannot  tell.  Then  I  have  said  to  such 
an  inquirer:  "You  know  the  Lord  Jesus-,  some  things 
of  His  heart,  you  know  them,  and  some  of  His 
desires — what  thing  would  He  desire  for  you  in  this 
matter.''  I  ask  you."  And  I  have  seen  such  an  one, 
behind  her  face,  go  away  to  consider,  and  she  has 
come  back  enlightened.  "I  see  now,"  she  has  told 
me,  "that  of  these  two  paths  I  must  choose  this  one." 


ISO  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

"And  why?"  "Because  the  Lord  would  say  of  the 
other  one  it  is  crooked,  but  this  one — He  would  see  it 
straight." 

It  is  not  for  nothing  that  the  Bulu  carries  through 
the  discipline  of  the  ten  commandments  a  shining 
face — that  he  counts  his  tyings  like  possessions  and 
wears  them  on  his  forehead  like  an  ornament.  For 
him  the  "Child  of  the  sister"  sits  at  the  well  by  the 
way.  Between  them  there  is  talk  of  all  things  ever 
the  Bulu  did;  and  that  conversation  deepens  in 
intent  as  the  day  advances,  until  from  talk  of  tribal 
things,  of  the  things  of  sex,  of  fetish,  there  comes  to 
be  talk  of  the  Father,  of  His  desire  for  men,  of  the 
things  of  the  spirit,  of  true  words,  of  the  high  duty 
of  man  in  a  pure  worship  of  God. 

"Take  my  yoke  upon  you,"  says  Christ  to  the 
Bulu;  and  the  Bulu  bends  his  neck — with  its  scar  at 
the  nape  that  is  the  seal  of  his  initiation  to  the  old 
Bulu  secret  society;  he  bends  his  neck  with  its 
tattooed  seal  of  all  that  is  evil — to  that  holy  yoke. 

"Learn  of  me,"  says  Christ  to  the  Bulu  woman  who 
is  "stupid  as  a  hen,"  who  is  "no  more  than  hands." 
And  the  Bulu  woman  learns. 


THE  TEN  TYINGS  131 

DR.  GOOD  SPEAKS  TO  THE    BULU 
OF  THE  THINGS  OF  GOD 

In  nearly  every  case  the  Gospel  seemed  to  make  a  profound 
impression,  at  least  for  a  time.  The  truth  of  what  I  said  was 
rarely  questioned.  You  will  wonder  at  this  in  a  people  v/ho  never 
before  heard  even  a  rumor  of  divine  truth,  until  you  understand 
how  wonderfully  the  truth  we  preach  harmonizes  with  and  supple- 
ments what  they  already  believe.  They  believe  in  an  eternal 
Being  who  has  made  all  things,  to  whom  all  men  return  at  death, 
but  they  do  not  think  of  this  Being  as  observing  their  actions, 
or  that  after  death  He  may  call  them  to  account  for  deeds  done 
in  the  body. 

The  fundamental  truths  which  they  hold  seem  like  fragments 
of  a  broken  chain,  which  they  are  too  thoughtless  to  connect; 
but  when  the  missionary  comes  along  and  connects  these  several 
fragments,  they  cannot  help  seeing  how  they  fit  together.  I  ask 
them  who  made  them  and  all  things,  and  they  reply  at  once, 
"Nzam."  "Who  gives  you  all  the  blessings  you  enjoy?"  "He 
does."  Do  you  love  and  worship  Him  and  thank  Him  for  all  His 
goodness?  "No."  "Why  not?" 

At  once  they  see  their  conduct  must  be  displeasing  to  God. 
"Are  Ijang,  stealing,  killing,  right  or  wrong?"  "Wrong,  of  course." 
"How  do  you  know?"  They  cannot  tell;  they  just  know  it.  To 
the  suggestion  that  these  things  are  written  in  their  hearts,  like 
the  words  in  a  white  man's  book,  they  assent  at  once  as  a  satis- 
factory explanation. 

"Who  wrote  those  things  in  your  hearts?"  "We  don't  know," 
they  say.  "Who  made  you?"  "Nzam,"  or  "Njamhe,"  both  words 
are  used.  Then,  "Did  He  not  write  these  laws  in  your  hearts?" 
Here  was  a  break  in  their  knowledge,  but  the  moment  the  missing 
link  is  supplied  the  chain  is  made  complete  in  their  minds.  "Yes," 
in  a  chorus,  "yes.  He  gave  us  these  laws  in  our  hearts."  Then  I  am 
ready  to  press  home  the  great  truth  from  which  there  is  now  no 
escape.  "If  God  made  this  law.  He  must  be  angry  when  it  is 
broken.  He  must  see  when  it  is  broken,  for  He  made  the  eye;  as 
he  made  the  ear.  He  must  Himself  hear  what  is  spoken  contrary 


138  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

to  this  law!"  "Yes,  that  must  be  so."  "Then,  when  death  calls 
you  into  the  presence  of  this  Being  whose  laws  you  have  broken, 
how  will  He  receive  you?"  They  attempt  no  evasion;  they  admit 
that  God  will  be  angry;  and  when  I  tell  them  of  heaven  and  hell 
the  excitement  becomes  intense.  Then  I  lead  them  on  to  the 
blessed  truth  that  God  is  a  God  of  mercy;  and  often  when  the 
strange  new  story  is  finished,  trade  and  greed,  all  else  seem  for- 
gotten. 
—Ellen  C.  Parsons,  A  Life  for  Africa,  p.  192,  Revell,  1900. 

THE  FANG  AND  THE  THINGS  OF  GOD 

I  have  sometimes  foimd  a  town  in  a  state  of  preparation  and 
eager  inquiry  through  their  casual  meeting  with  native  Chris- 
tians. One  day  I  sailed  with  the  Evangeline  to  a  town  fifteen  miles 
away,  called  Elen  Akidia — Daxim  of  the  morning;  for  it  is  built  upon 
a  hill  that  rises  above  the  surrounding  bush,  so  that  they  can  see 
the  first  light  of  day.  I  stayed  in  the  town  over  night.  In  the 
evening  a  large  audience  gathered  in  the  palaver-house,  which  was 
lighted  by  a  tiny  lamp.  It  had  no  chimney,  to  be  sure,  but  still 
it  was  the  boast  of  the  towTi.  They  had  been  learning  for  several 
years  of  the  Christian  reUgion  from  ill-instructed  natives,  but  I 
do  not  know  that  any  Protestant  missionary  had  ever  preached 
there. 

They  listened  so  attentively  and  earnestly  that  I  talked  to 
them  for  more  than  an  hour.  Then,  being  tired,  I  went  out  and 
sat  near  by  in  the  dark,  but  they  remained  gravely  discussing 
what  they  had  heard. 

The  chief  in  closing  said:  "We  have  done  all  these  things  that 
God  hates.  We  have  beaten  our  wives  and  made  them  work  like 
slaves.  We  have  been  cruel  to  children,  and  we  have  neglected 
the  sick,  but  I  think  God  will  forgive  us  when  we  tell  Him  we  did 
not  know.  We  have  lived  in  great  darkness,  but  now  the  light 
has  come;  we  must  change  our  ways.  And  you  women,  you  need 
not  be  puffed  up  because  the  white  man  took  your  part;  for  you 
are  the  cause  of  most  of  our  troubles.  We  must  all  change  our 
ways.  I  hope  the  white  man  will  come  back  soon  and  help  us, 
for  we  need  help." 


THE  TEN  TYINGS  1S3 

The  grave  tone  and  serious  manner  of  the  speaker,  with  the 
dark  and  silent  night  surrounding,  all  deepened  the  impression 
of  his  words,  which  seemed  the  most  pathetic  from  heathen  lips; 
and  often  again  I  went  to  Elen  Akidia — Dawn  of  the  morning. 
— R.  H.  Milligan,  The  Jungle  Folk  of  Africa,  p.  369,  Revell, 
1908. 

THE  CITY  OF  REFUGE 

"You  are  servants  of  God,  men  of  peace;  you  have  seen  coun- 
tries where  Justice  reigns.  But  you  do  not  know  us  Barotsi  yet. 
We  are  men  of  blood;  we  murder  each  other  drinking,  talking, 
and  laughing  together."  Which,  alas,  is  only  too  true. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  something,  if,  as  they  assure  us,  our  presence 
here  prevents  the  parties  from  coming  to  blows  and  killing  each 
other.  The  station  is  neutral  ground,  a  city  of  refuge.  Both 
parties  feel  that  here  they  would  not  dare  to  kill  anybody. 

When  the  chiefs  of  the  two  parties  meet,  it  is  not  to  the  village 
(a  stone's  throw  from  here)  nor  yet  to  their  own  houses  that  they 
go;  they  prefer  to  stop  just  here,  and  make  shelters  if  they  have 
to  pass  the  night.  To  see  them  sitting  together  under  the  shade 
of  a  large  tree,  without  arms,  except  for  a  stick  which  in  their 
hands  is  a  formidable  weapon — taking  snuff,  clapping  their 
hands,  scattering  the  usual  "Shangwes"  and  every  possible  token 
of  politeness,  you  would  think  them  the  most  inoffensive  people 
and  the  most  intimate  friends.  But,  as  soon  as  darkness  descends 
to  twilight,  they  take  their  arms  and  flee,  each  distrusting  the 
other. 

— F.  Coillard,  On  the  Threshold  of  Central  Africa,  p.  200, 
American  Tract  Society,  1903. 


1S4  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

QUESTIONS  FOR  CHAPTER  IV. 

1.  What  vices  among  the  natives  of  your  mission  field  are  con- 
trolled by  the  law  of  God? 

2.  What  elements  in  the  social  system  of  the  natives  of  your 
mission  field  are  contrary  to  God's  law? 

S.  What  bearing  has  God's  law  upon  the  practice  of  witch- 
craft? 

4.  Can  you  cite  from  your  own  mission  records  any  incidents 
where  God's  law  has  been  a  shield  against  violence? 

5.  By  what  agencies  is  the  law  of  God  propagated  in  your 
mission  in  Africa? 

6.  What  bearing  do  you  think  medical  work  must  have  upon 
the  knowledge  and  practice  of  the  law  of  God? 

7.  What  bearing  must  book  learning  have? 

8.  WTiat  bearing  must  industrial  education  have? 

9.  What  part  have  the  school  children  in  this  propagation? 

10.  Do  adults  in  your  African   Mission  learn  to  read  and 
WTite? 

11.  How  do  adults,  unable  to  read,  leam  the  Ten  Command- 
ments? 

12.  Are  the  native  Christians  of  your  region  teachers  one 
of  the  other,  and  of  the  heathen? 

13.  Why  must  the  native  Christian  be  the  ultimate  evangelizer 
of  Africa? 


BIBLE  READING  AND  PRAYER 
FOR  CHAPTER  V. 

Isaiah,  Chapter  60 

Prayer 

OThou  King  eternal,  immortal,  invisible,  Thou 
only  wise  God  our  Saviour;  Hasten,  we 
beseech  Thee,  the  coming  of  Thy  kingdom 
upon  earth,  and  draw  the  whole  world  of  mankind 
into  willing  obedience  to  Thy  blessed  reign.  Over- 
come all  the  enemies  of  Christ,  and  bring  low  every 
power  that  is  exalted  against  Him.  Cast  out  all  the 
evil  things  which  cause  wars  and  fightings  among  us, 
and  let  Thy  Spirit  rule  the  hearts  of  men  in  righteous- 
ness and  love.  Restore  the  desolations  of  former 
days;  rejoice  the  wilderness  with  beauty;  and  make 
glad  the  city  with  Thy  law.  Establish  every  work 
that  is  founded  on  truth  and  equity,  and  fulfil  all 
the  good  hopes  and  desires  of  Thy  people.  Manifest 
Thy  will,  Almighty  Father,  in  the  brotherhood  of 
man,  and  bring  in  universal  peace;  through  the 
victory    of    Christ    our    Lord.     Amen." 

— Book  of  Common  Worship. 


A  ZULU  TRAINED  NURSE,  FROM  THE  AMERICAN 
BOARD'S  HOSPITAL  AT  DURBAN 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE   NEW   TRIBE 


The  Creator  of  In  our  neighborhood  the  people  speak 
the  new  tribe.  continually  of  the  tribe  of  God  and 
the  tribe  of  this  world,  God,  they  say,  who  has 
made  all  tribes,  is  now  busy  in  the  creation  of  a  new 
tribe.  And  it  is  to  be  seen  more  and  more  "with  the 
eye"  that  there  are  two  tribes  and  two  destinies. 
The  paths  are  two  and  the  towns  are  tv/o. 

As  a  rich  man  of  a  superior  tribe  may  buy  women 
of  one  tribe  and  another,  assimilating  them  into  his 
own  tribe,  exacting  of  them  the  observance  of  his 
tribal  custom,  so  are  the  people  of  the  tribe  of  God 
recruited  from  this  tribe  and  another — no  tribe 
being  scorned  by  the  Headman  of  the  tribe  of  God. 
It  is  agreed  that  even  a  dwarf — that  thing  to  laugh 
at — may  be  a  Christian.  But  it  is  said  of  the  tribe 
of  God  that,  whereas  a  headman  of  the  tribes  of  this 
world,  in  buying  a  woman,  never  asks  if  her  heart 
agrees,  nor  does  a  white  man  hunting  a  man  to  carry 
a  load,  God  in  gathering  His  tribe  does  indeed  ask 
that  question.  He  does  not  set  a  soldier  to  catch  you, 
or  force  you  as  a  rich  man  forces  a  woman.  He 
draws  you,  and  you  turn  your  heart. 
The  "turrxing  This  "turning  of  the  heart?"  How 
of  the  heart."  often  I  have  heard  of  it,  sitting  knee 
to  knee  with  a  black  woman,  while  she  was  still 


138  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

what  old  Minkoe  Ntem  would  call  a  "little  new 
thing"  in  the  tribe  of  God : 

"A  wife  of  my  husband  is  a  person  of  the  tribe  of 
God  and  the  words  of  God  in  her  mouth  very  much 
drew  me  to  be  a  Christian." 

"The  things  of  women  are  hard  to  bear,  therefore 
I  turned  my  heart  to  the  things  of  God." 

"Many  evil  things  I  have  done,  all  evil  I  know 
and  have  done, — these  evil  things  that  I  have  done, 
I  throw  them  into  the  river  and  I  turn  my  heart  to 
the  things  of  God." 

"I  have  borne  no  child,  for  this  my  heart  is  heavy 
and  full  of  shame;  there  is  a  Christian  in  my  town 
who  tells  me  that  there  is  help  for  the  heart  in  the 
words  of  God." 

"I  fear  the  things  of  beyond  death,  therefore  I 
want  to  straighten  my  path  and  turn  toward  God." 

"I  was  sick  and  near  death,  then  I  saw  that  there 
is  a  quick  end  to  the  things  of  this  world  and  I  tied 
myself  in  my  heart  to  enter  the  tribe  of  God." 

"I,  too,  I  covet  these  new  things,  I,  too,  I  want  to 
follow  the  people  of  God  to  the  town  of  God.  I 
want  to  sit  down  in  the  seat  where  the  tribe  of  God 
will  sit  beyond  death." 

These  are  they  who  are  drawn  by  sorrow,  by  ill- 
ness, by  the  disillusions  of  old  age,  by  fear,  by  a  kind 
of  emulation,  and  always — and  all — by  the  racial 
thirst  for  life.  On  the  lips  of  all — the  old  cry  "I 
desire  life,"  now  intensified  and  extended — "I 
desire  life  beyond  death." 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  1S9 

We  have  our  bargainers.  Of  the 
Ngoni  Dr.  Elmslie  writes  that  they 
said, — "If  we  would  agree  to  countenance  one  more 
raid  on  the  people  at  the  north  who  were  rich  in 
cattle,  and  would  pray  to  our  God  that  they  might 
be  successful,  they  would  on  their  return  give  us 
part  of  the  spoil  in  cattle  and  wives,  and  would  pro- 
claim that  the  Book  was  to  be  accepted  by  the  whole 
tribe." 

And  I  remember  one  Ngo'  Ntoto,  who  struck  a 
bargain  with  God,  and  who  put  the  Almighty  to  a 
test;  he  would  be  a  Christian  if  God  gave  him  a  sign. 
And  this  was  to  be  the  sign — of  his  many  women  he 
chose  one,  and  this  a  barren  woman,  and  a  Christian. 
The  others  he  put  away.  And  it  was  his  custom  to 
pray  in  the  forest  for  a  child.  God  had  done  as  much 
for  Abraham  and  Sara,  so  might  he  do — clamored 
this  bargainer  on  his  knees  among  the  fallen  leaves 
of  the  forest — for  Ngo'  Ntoto  and  his  Bela. 

And  so  much  indeed  did  the  Lord  do,  and  more 

He  did,  for  he  gave  Ngo'  a  new  heart  and  a  gentler, 

to  serve  his  Master. 

^^    ^  We  have,  too,  our  dreamers  of  dreams. 

The  dreamers. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  black  man's 

religious  experience  less  kin  to  the  white  man's  re- 
ligious experience  than  the  dreams  which  the  black 
man  will  sometimes  tell  the  white  man.  In  the  eyes 
of  the  black  man  there  is  such  a  naive  awe,  such  a 
concerned  gravity.  In  the  eyes  of  the  white  man 
there  is  such  a  sophisticated  patience.  There,  be- 
tween them  is  unfolded  the  dream.  It  is  such  a  crude 


140  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

dream.  Not  always,  of  course;  there  is  in  Bishop 
Hamilton's  account  of  the  Nyasa  Mission  a  story 
of  a  heavenly  vision  adequately  interpreted.  But 
all  the  dreams  ever  I  heard  a  Bulu  tell  bore  the  im- 
print of  the  Bulu  mind.  Here  is  a  characteristic  one 
recounted  to  me  by  Dr.  Lehman  of  a  headman  of  our 
neighborhood.  The  doctor  had  visited  this  man 
more  than  once.  He  was  dying;  as  he  was  about  to 
die,  and  after  a  period  of  unconsciousness,  he  revived 
and  to  his  sons  who  sat  beside  him  in  his  little  bark 
hut  he  said, — "Believe  Yesus!  I  am  going,  Satan  has 
given  me  a  load  to  carry  to  Etotolan  (the  old  Bulu 
Hades).  I  have  to  carry  it  there,  and  I  see  the  people 
there  now  weeping.  As  for  me,  I  have  rejected  the 
word  of  God."  And  so  he  died,  going  away  with 
his  invisible  load  on  the  old  path  that  is  unknown. 
No  one  familiar  with  Bantu  obedience  to  dreams 
will  ask  whether  those  sons  so  bidden  by  a  dying 
father  were  long  in  making  their  way  to  the  town 
of  the  people  of  God. 

Menge,  the  wife  of  Nkolenden,  was  dead.  I  tell 
you  what  the  Bulu  tell  me.  She  lay  upon  the  grass 
mat  in  which  they  would  presently  bury  her.  Her 
husband  in  the  plantain  grove  behind  the  hut 
mourned  for  her  from  the  heart,  because  he  loved 
her  though  he  had  many  other  women.  And  he 
wailed  to  drive  away  that  poor  spirit  that  had  been, 
in  the  body,  his  wife.  The  mourning  women  called 
to  him  from  the  hut  that  Menge  had  returned. 
Menge  sat  up  on  her  grass  mat.  All  the  crescendo 
and  the  legato  and  the  staccato  and  the  pianissimo 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  141 

and  the  furioso  of  the  many- voiced  wailing  ceased. 
Menge  explained  in  that  sudden  silence  that  God 
had  sent  her  back  from  His  town  to  call  the  people 
of  her  husband's  town  to  turn  their  hearts  toward 
God.  And  with  her  feeble  voice  she  did  so  call  them. 
Ten  days  later  to  the  nearest  house  of  God,  perhaps 
ten  miles  away,  there  came  a  caravan  led  by  a  woman 
who  looked  to  Bekalli,  the  evangelist  in  that  house, 
as  though  she  were  about  to  die.  This  was  Menge, 
and  her  husband  Nkolenden,  and  literally — all  the 
inhabitants  of  their  vUlage.  These  had  come  to 
make  peace  with  God,  which  they  did.  These  things 
were  told  me  by  the  people  of  God,  black  and  white, 
in  our  neighborhood;  yet  when  I  slept  in  that  town 
and  ate  the  food  cooked  by  Menge,  and  spoke  the 
word  of  God  to  the  assembled  inhabitants,  there 
was  never  any  mention  of  this  adventure.  These 
villagers  had  been  warned  against  dwelling  upon  the 
supernatural  element  in  their  conversion.  Menge, 
back  from  august  and  mysterious  journeys,  must 
be  busy  in  the  garden  and  about  the  kettle  on  the 
fire.  There  must  be  no  taint  of  hysteria  in  the 
religious  experience  of  these  children. 
The  But  it  is,  in  the  main,  by  very  plain 

simple  folk.  and  lowly  paths  that  the  little  new 

things  come  in;  by  bands  woven  of  common  human 
experience — "the  bands  of  a  man" — that  they  are 
"drawn"  to  their  divine  adventure.  Many  with 
such  self-seeking  hearts,  and  no  more  spiritually 
articulate  than  I  have  told  you,  are  put  under  the 
rudimentary  discipline  of  the  tribe. 


142  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

^    ,  Many  thousands  of  such  there  are, 

The  leaders.  ^ 

for  as  many  score  of  another  type — 

the  type  of  chosen  leader,  the  man  and  the  woman 
of  some  particular  spiritual  gift,  of  whom  is  to  be 
required  some  particular  spiritual  service  or  sacri- 
fice. Minkoe  Ntem,  that  mother  of  Christians,  who 
asked  of  her  own  heart  when  her  first  born  lay  on 
her  knees — "What  skill  has  been  at  work  here?" 
Bekalli,  that  shepherd  of  men,  who  was  carrying  a 
load  of  salt  from  the  beach  to  the  interior  and  who 
slept  one  night  in  a  village  where  a  man  read  from 
"that  thing  of  the  white  man — a  book,"  an  argu- 
ment like  this — "Come  unto  Me  all  that  feel  trouble 
and  are  wearied  of  burdens  and  I  will  give  you  rest." 
These  words,  the  accomplished  speaker  had  claimed, 
were  "words  from  God";  and  Bekalli  the  carrier 
rose  with  the  morning  and  walked  continually  for 
many  days  toward  where  the  sun  rises,  with  his  load 
of  salt  on  his  back,  and  he  very  much  pondered  these 
words  in  his  heart.  Because  the  knowing  one  had 
said  that  God  in  speaking  thus  was  speaking  of  the 
things  of  the  heart,  and  not  of  the  burdens  of  the 
caravan — Bekalli  himself,  being  a  real  person  and 
no  longer  a  youth,  very  much  understood  this 
saying.  And  returning  that  same  way  he  heard  the 
"good  news  of  the  Lord  Jesus."  Thus  was  Bekalli 
converted  who  has  never  ceased  to  speak  the  Word, 
and  who  is  approved  of  God  and  man. 

In  every  beginning  there  are  such  as  these — first 
fruits  of  a  peculiar  virtue — first  leaves  on  the  tree 
that  are  to  be  for  the  healing  of  the  tribe.  Wameck 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  148 

speaks,  in  his  wonderful  book  on  the  "Living  forces 
of  the  Gospel,"  of  such  as  these,  born  more  mature 
than  others  into  the  tribe. 

"We  can  thus  see  that  on  many  mission  fields 
God  is  fitting  out  men  among  the  peoples  to  be 
evangelized.  The  forces  of  heathenism  and  the 
hindrances  resulting  therefrom  are  powerless  over 
such  men;  and  the  bridges  necessary  elsewhere  do 
not  need  to  be  built  for  them — facts  that  might  have 
been  deemed  psychologically  impossible.  They  ven- 
ture boldly  to  leap  the  gulf  between  heathenism 
and  Christianity.  Missionaries,  surprised  and  glad- 
dened by  their  presence,  see  in  them  no  fruits  of  their 
own  patient  labor,  but  rather  the  immediate  gifts 
of  God.  We  do  not  mean  to  say  that  these  men  are 
at  once  finished  Christian  characters,  but  from  the 
first  hearing  of  the  Gospel  they  cease  to  be  heathen; 
they  go  a  swifter  and  surer  way  into  the  sanctuary 
than  is  possible  to  other  heathen.  God  creates  such 
men  for  Himself  because  He  means  to  use  them  as 
pioneers  among  His  people." 

The  gifts  of  God!  Every  mission  field  in  Africa 
has  had  such  gifts.  Ask  the  Baganda,  the  Barotse, 
the  Zulu,  the  Bechuanas,  the  Yorubas — ask  of  any 
tribe  at  all  that  has  heard  five  words  of  the  Word, 
of  these  gifts  of  God.  Among  the  Bulu,  too,  there 
have  been  such  gifts.  The  Bulu  name  them  in  their 
hearts;  they  have  a  tribal  fame.  They  are  loved  by 
the  missionaries  with  an  indescribable  affection. 
It  is  as  if  God  had  seen  that  there  must  be  a  helpmeet 
for  the  work  and  for  the  worker;  it  is  as  if  while  on 


144  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

a  night  of  exhaustion  and  discouragement  the  mis- 
sionary slept,  God  had  made  him  a  helpmeet  out 
of  his  very  rib — the  rib  nearest  his  lonely  heart. 
This  is  why  in  all  the  little  leaflets  and  the  little 
biographies  written  by  missionaries  of  their  black 
friends,  there  is  a  lack  of  measure;  there  is  an  ex- 
ceeding appreciation.  So  much  have  these  leaders 
in  the  tribe  and  these  helpers  of  lonely  white  men 
been  the  gift  of  God  that  there  is  a  never-forgotten 
wonder  at  the  events  of  their  careers — at  the  Chris- 
tian virtue  of  their  characters. 

These  are  the  elements  of  the  Tribe  of  God  in  our 
neighborhood — the  simple  folk  and  the  leaders. 
How  may  I  be  telling  you  by  how  many  paths  that 
are  all  old  paths,  like  the  village  paths  to  a  common 
spring,  the  people  of  the  forest  come  to  the  well  of 
living  water!  Or  how  many  will  be  returning  with 
very  little  jars  and  water  roiled  by  their  own  roiling, 
and  how  there  are  those  who  will  be  carrying  great 
jars — vessels  of  honor — and  who  will  be  bringing 
back  to  their  neighbors  the  water  of  Life — and  that 
more  abundantly. 

Adjustments  of  There  is  among  us  a  notable  lack  of 
the  new  convert,  emotional  excess  either  in  the  begin- 
ning or  in  the  course  of  religious  experience.  The 
things  of  God  bear  too  heavily  upon  the  untried 
shoulders.  There  are  no  margins  for  the  enjoyment 
of  an  excess  of  emotion.  The  impact  of  the  new 
things  upon  the  things  of  sex,  of  gain,  and  of  fetish 
is  too  immediate  and  too  jarring.  Your  man  and 
your  woman,  stripped  of  old  customs  of  sex,  of 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  145 

gain,  and  of  fetish,  must  make  shift  to  piece  together 
a  mode  of  Hfe.  So  many  practical  details  call  for 
immediate  attention.  This  "little  new  thing"  is 
so  often  beat  upon  by  the  winds  of  persecution,  and 
must  so  soon  go  down  into  the  valley  of  abnegation. 
About  this  bewildeied  little  new  thing  there  crashes 
the  very  perceptible  and  practical  conflict  of  the 
things  of  God  with  the  things  of  sex  and  gain 
and  fetish.  There  is  a  kind  of  Gdtterddmmerimg 
about  the  little  new  thing — and  voices  come  out  of 
that  darkness  full  of  challenge.  The  familiar  voices 
of  the  old  things  menace  and  warn,  the  voices  of  the 
new  things  encourage  and  urge,  there  is  a  voice  of 
black  fear,  and  a  voice  at  which  the  heart  trembles — 
the  voice  of  honored  customs  laid  aside. 

And  in  all  this  clamor,  there  are  things  to  be  done, 
difficult  things.  Open  confessions  to  be  made,  public 
retributions  to  be  borne,  chastisements,  often  physi- 
cal chastisements,  to  be  endured,  and  impoverish- 
ments. These  adventures  are  not  academic,  they 
are  adventures  of  flesh  and  blood,  adventures  of  the 
pocket,  adventures  of  the  heart,  adventures  of  the 
will. 

_    ^     .  I  see  an  old  woman  sitting  on  a  bench 

Confessions.  .  ° 

m  a  brown  bark  house  that  was  tne 

minister's  house  in  our  clearing.  She  wants  to  make 

her  confession  to  the  minister — who  had  heard  how 

many  tens  of  confessions  in  that  week!     But  she 

edged  up  and  down  her  bench,  hedging  in  her  account 

of  her  career  and  glancing  at  me.     "You  fear  the 

white  woman";  said  the  minister,  "myself  I  tell  you 


146  AN  AJiaCAN  TRAIL 

not  to  fear  her.  Her  mouth  is  shut."  Then  our  old 
woman  said  that  she  had  killed  three  men — oh, 
long  ago;  not  on  one  day,  of  course,  but  wisely,  with 
an  herb  of  the  forest  that  she  knew.  This  she  had 
put  in  the  food  of  her  enemies.  For  they  were  indeed 
her  enemies.  These  were  they  who  had  killed  her 
three  sons.  Yes,  once  she  had  had  three  sons — real 
men.  And  one  and  all  they  had  died,  each  man  of  a 
witch.  She  knew  in  her  heart  what  three  men  had 
given  a  witch  to  her  sons,  and  for  this,  when  suffi- 
cient time  passed,  she  had  poisoned  the  food  of  her 
enemies.  Not  all  on  the  same  day,  you  understand? 
The  minister  understood.  Now,  said  our  old  woman 
with  a  look  of  guilt  and  of  relief,  now  that  this  word 
was  opened  up,  and  this  deed  was  thrown  into  the 
river,  would  God  accept  her?  She  desired  the  new 
things,  and  to  follow  the  path  of  the  people  of  God. 
She  had  heard  of  Yesus,  son  of  Zambe,  that  he  had 
paid  a  price  that  was  sufficient  for  all  the  evil  deeds! 
Terrible  old  woman,  never  to  be  forgotten  in  her  look 
of  guilt  and  her  look  of  hope. 

Another  of  our  ministers  told  me  of  a  man  who 
returned  to  him  a  few  hours  after  his  confession,  to 
say:  "I  forgot  this  thing — that  I  have  eaten  men. 
Will  God  forgive  me  this,  or  is  it  a  deed  which  will 
spoil  me  in  His  eyes?" 

Thus  one  and  another  spells  out  the  secret  com- 
bination to  his  past — ^you  hear  the  click  of  the  lock, 
and  there  before  you  are  spread  out  the  hidden  and 
the  hideous  things. 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  147 

e    .  ,  In  this  dark  hour  men  count  over 

social 

Adjustments:  their  women.  The  conflict  with  poly  g- 
Polygamy.  ^^^  -^^  gantu  Africa  has  taken  differ- 

ent forms  in  different  localities,  for  the  forms  of 
polygamy  vary.  The  regulations  of  dowry  vary,  the 
status  of  women,  the  honor  accorded  or  not  accorded 
the  first  wife — these  things  vary  among  the  tribes 
of  the  Bantu.  So  far  as  I  know  monogamy  is  in  every 
Bantu  locality  the  ideal  of  the  new  tribe;  I  do  not 
know  of  aaiy  Bantu  mission  where  a  man  is  received 
into  the  church  with  a  plurality  of  wives.  There  are 
localities  where  a  woman,  to  be  publicly  received 
among  the  people  of  God,  must  withdraw  from  a 
polygamous  marriage.  In  other  localities,  as  in  ours, 
women  are  so  enslaved,  so  much  the  chattel,  that 
it  cannot  be  required  of  them  that  they  withdraw 
from  a  condition  into  which  they  have  been  sold. 
Whatever  the  variations  in  the  dealings  with  polyg- 
amy, and  however  imperfect  to  the  reader  the  oper- 
ation may  seem  to  be,  he  is  to  remember  that  it  is 
an  operation,  performed  by  those  who  have  given 
the  malady  a  skilled  attention — and  never  without 
consultation. 

In  our  locality,  the  man  takes  stock  of  his  women, 
and  chooses  that  one  who  is  to  be,  after  the  custom 
of  the  new  tribe,  his  wife.  He  is  not  bound  by  any 
consideration  to  choose  the  first  woman  purchased 
or  inherited  by  him,  as  such  an  enforcement  might 
well  be  a  cruelty  both  to  himself  and  to  the  woman. 
He  may  have  inherited  in  his  boyhood,  from  his 
father,    a    woman    much    older    than    himself.  In 


148  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

choosing  a  wife  from  among  his  women  he  is  expected 
to  take  that  one  with  whom  he  thinks  he  can  most 
happily  adapt  himself  to  monogamy.  This  adjust- 
ment may  be — it  often  is — an  adventure  of  the  heart. 
It  is  always  an  adventure  of  the  will.  And  it  is 
always  a  mental  discipline,  often  an  extreme  mental 
discipline.  For  the  Christian  in  disposing  of  his 
women  may  not  sell  them  ruthlessly;  he  must  dis- 
pose of  them  after  the  fashion  of  the  new  tribe,  with 
respect  to  the  inclination  of  the  woman,  and  never 
to  a  man  who  has  other  women.  He  must  take 
account  of  the  maternal  rights  in  children  who  are 
legally  his;  he  cannot  deprive  a  mother  of  young 
children  and  must  permit  her  the  charge  of  these 
where  she  is  at  all  concerned  for  them.  When 
eligible  buyers  are  not  forthcoming,  a  man  is  obliged 
to  send  his  women  to  their  father's  town  without 
any  immediate  or  certain  return  of  his  dowry.  Here 
you  have  an  adventure  of  the  pocket,  indeed  these 
adjustments  always  impoverish  the  Christian.  It 
is  not  possible  for  a  Christian  Bulu  to  be  an  "nkuk- 
um"  or  man  of  means;  he  has  no  illusions  about  this, 
for  Christ's  sake  he  becomes  poor,  or  at  best  he 
finds  himself  with  that  slim  means  which  the  Bulu 
call  "the  size  of  the  hand." 

There  is  no  adjustment  of  the  old  things  of  the 
Bulu  to  the  new  things  of  God  more  vivid,  more 
objective,  than  these  marriage  palavers.  They  go 
forward  under  the  eaves  of  the  houses  by  day,  beside 
the  palaver-house  fires  at  night.  Fathers  and 
brothers  orate  and  gesticulate;  girls  are  sounded 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  149 

as  to  their  preferences — and  are  suddenly  and  per- 
versely dumb;  Christian  wives  of  a  common  husband 
who  have  been  praying  these  many  seasons,  rainy 
and  dry,  for  the  conversion  of  their  man,  take  the 
disturbing  answer  to  their  prayers  in  a  kind  of 
dazed  sweet  patience.  The  women  least  desirable 
are  first  disposed  of — it  is  easiest  to  let  them  go — 
until  at  last  a  man  must  come  to  a  choice  between 
those  who  appeal  to  his  heart,  to  his  senses,  to  his 
habit.  I  think  of  one  man,  young,  eager,  keen  to 
excel  in  the  things  of  God.  His  ultimate  choice  lay 
between  two  women,  both  mothers  of  children, 
both  young,  both  comely.  He  did,  indeed,  love  them 
both.  Both  were  Christians,  and  both  willing  to 
further  his  interests.  But  he  s withered.  He  could 
not  drive  either  out  of  his  life.  He  would  have  first 
one  and  then  the  other,  until  he  exasperated  and 
enraged  both.  The  town  of  this  young  headman  was, 
for  a  matter  of  two  or  three  years,  nondescript, 
neither  the  town  of  a  Christian,  for  he  might  not 
call  himself  that  while  he  so  outraged  the  custom 
of  the  tribe  of  God,  nor  was  it  the  town  of  a  heathen, 
for  he  served  God  in  all  his  ways  but  one.  Believe 
that  this  young  man,  who  wrestled  until  he  was  at 
last  blest,  carries  upon  his  face  the  tribal  mark  of  dis- 
cipline. His  was  an  adventure  of  the  heart  and  will. 
Acknowledgment  !»  ^^^^  ^^^^  of  open  confession  young 
and  payment  men  who  have  owed  many  a  headman 
°    ®   ^*  in  secret  for  stolen  favors,  must  make 

acknowledgement  of  these  and  the  promise  of  pay- 
ment. I  have  known  a  young  man  to  be  several  years 


160  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

in  finding  the  wherewithal  to  pay  such  debts  as 
these.  Young  women  must  confess  to  brutal  hus- 
bands the  secrets  of  their  wild  years,  must  suffer 
stripes  and  the  outcry  of  the  \nllage.  How  strongly 
God  draws  these  girls  themselves  can  tell.  One  of  the 
weakest  of  these,  how  well  I  remember  her  reluc- 
tance! We  were  sitting  in  her  brown  hut,  the  hut 
nearest  old  Obam  Ze's  palaver  house,  for  she  was  the 
then  favorite  of  that  connoisseur  of  young  women. 
Andungo  was  in  her  early  twenties,  pretty  and 
gentle  with  that  grace  of  manner  which  so  much 
distinguishes  many  forest  women.  We  had  spoken 
of  many  things,  the  things  of  the  gardens  and  of  the 
village.  When  I  spoke  at  last  of  the  things  of  the  new 
tribe — "Are  you  never  drawn  by  these  things?"  I 
asked  Andungo.  There  was  then  an  agitation  behind 
that  young  face,  a  wistfulness  and  a  reluctance. 
She  spoke  softly  with  an  exaggeration  of  caution. 
"I  am  indeed  drawn,  every  day  I  am  drawn.  The 
women  of  this  village  who  are  Christians,  they 
speak  continually  words  that  draw  me.  My  own 
heart  agrees  to  their  words,  and  my  heart  draws 
me.  My  mother  is  a  person  of  God,  she  speaks  to 
me  words  that  draw  me.  But,  ah,  my  friend!  I  am 
of  a  peculiar  cowardice!  My  mother,  she  is  of  a 
peculiar  courage;  when  she  was  first  drawn  to  become 
a  Christian  she  just  went  to  her  husband  and  con- 
fessed her  bad  deeds  and  endured  her  beatings  and 
endured  the  talk  in  the  village.  But,  ah,  my  friend! 
how  could  I  bear  to  go  to  Obam  Ze  and  open  the 
word  of  my  bad  deeds  to  him.  I  cannot  endure  that 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  151 

thing.  I  am  of  a  peculiar  cowardice!"  And  she 
looked  at  me  with  a  kind  of  subdued  agitation — a 
reluctance,  a  wistfulness.  "Who  gave  your  mother 
her  peculiar  courage?"  I  asked  her,  and  she  told  me 
Zambe  had  given  that  peculiar  courage  to  her 
mother.  Then  we  thought  it  would  be  useless  to  go 
to  Obam  Ze  until  God  had  given  Andungo  something 
to  go  on.  These  things  are  past  the  endurance  of 
trembling  girls  like  Andungo.  It  would  be  six  weeks 
after  this  conversation  when  Andungo  came  to  see 
me  in  my  house,  and  she  showed  me  her  new  face. 
There  was  the  face  of  a  person  of  God.  Every 
African  missionary  will  know  what  I  mean.  And 
she  said  in  her  soft,  hurried  voice  that  God  had 
given  her  courage,  peculiar  courage,  so  that  she  had 
endured  to  go  to  Obam  Ze.  To  him  she  had  said 
that  she  could  no  longer  be  a  person  of  this  world, 
she  was  drawn  to  be  a  person  of  the  tribe  of  God. 
And  she  must  tell  him  all  her  disobediences  and 
some  things  of  shame.  "Go  away!"  said  Obam  Ze, 
"take  away  your  bad  deeds,  don't  spoil  my  ears 
with  them,  I  cannot  endure  to  hear  them!" 

This  reluctance  of  Obam  Ze  is  not  characteristic — 
other  husbands  have  a  peculiar  courage  with  which 
to  listen  to  the  trembling  confessions  of  little  new 
things,  and  there  are  women  who  will  carry  the 
marks  of  these  hours  to  their  dying  days.  These  are 
adventures  of  poor  flesh  and  blood. 
The  break  In  this  hour  one  and  aU,  the  timid 

with  fetish.  qj^^  j-j^g  qJ^j  g^jj^  ^^q  downtrodden  and 

the  barren,  as  well  as  the  proud  and  the  brave,  one 


152  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

and  all  must  break  in  the  sight  of  his  fellows — and 
with  what  inner  trembling  who  can  know? — with 
the  things  of  fetish.  This  break  is  the  supreme 
effort  of  the  will,  the  initial  sally  into  what  must 
be  a  lifelong  war.  To  the  people  of  the  tribe  of  God 
the  little  new  things  bring  the  poor  rubbish  that 
has  hitherto  helped  them — skulls  that  are  the 
earthly  vessel  for  the  spirit  of  the  ancestors;  the 
angular  little  images  that  are  informed  by  the  aristoc- 
racy of  the  spirit  world;  minor  fetishes — amulets 
for  the  hunter,  for  the  fisher,  for  the  trader,  charms 
for  the  times  of  planting,  for  the  expectant  parent, 
for  the  traveler,  love  potions,  beauty  charms, 
charms  against  fire,  against  wild  beasts,  against 
falling  trees,  charms  against  charms.  See  how  naked 
our  poor  Bulu  stands  at  last  in  this  world  of  inimical 
spirit  life!  And  other  abnegations  he  makes;  the 
words  of  his  mouth,  the  meditations  of  his  heart, 
the  ancient  wisdom  handed  down  through  genera- 
tions— all  these  must  suffer  change.  That  Bulu, 
divested  of  all  outward  protection  against  spiritual 
attack  and  counter-attack,  must  put  aside  his  wisdom 
and  the  subtle  arts  of  fetish  and  must  come  to  be, 
indeed,  a  little  new  thing,  relying  upon  God  alone  for 
protection  from  what  are  to  him  relentless  enemies. 
These  Mark  that  these  abnegations,  these 

adjustm  ents  persecutions,  are  suffered  not  in  any 
are  pu    c.  sheltered  place.  They  are  suffered  in 

the  open.  There  is  no  quiet  hour  when  a  man  may 
take  breath  and  renew  his  strength.  There  is  always 
the  voluble  concern  in  the  palaver  house,  the  scorn 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  16S 

of  some,  the  tears  of  others — the  many- voiced  river 
of  the  tribe  breaking  continually  on  the  rock  of  his 
conviction. 

These  Continually.  Not   just   in   the   dark 

antagonisms  hour  of  his  submission,  but  in  every 
areperpetu  .  hour  and  adventure  of  his  life — the 
hour  of  marriage,  of  childbirth,  the  seasons  of  plant- 
ing and  of  harvest;  of  the  hunting  and  the  fishing, 
of  the  new  moon  and  the  waning— at  all  these  hours 
and  in  every  season,  the  voice  of  his  tribe  urges  and 
the  voice  of  his  own  heart  recalls  the  old  wisdom, 
the  old  custom,  the  dark  things  of  sex,  of  gain,  and 
of  fetish.  Until  at  last  upon  his  death  bed  that  man 
of  many  temptations  must  wave  away  the  last  one 
in  the  person  of  some  old  and  wise  mother  of  his 
tribe,  who  would  put  upon  him  a  sure  spell  to  keep 
him  from  the  outer  darkness.  Perhaps  you  feel  as  you 
read  how  small  is  the  place  in  this  long  toil  for 
emotional  excess.  We  have  not  found  emotional 
excess  to  be  a  major  peril  in  our  black  man's  holy  war. 

„  .  So  much  for  conversion,  so  much  for 

Regeneration.  .  i        i     ^       <■ 

coniession,    and   what    oi    regenera- 
tion.? What  does  this  little  new  thing  become? 
The  things  On    one    Sunday    at    a    communion 

of  baptism.  service  among  an  inland  tribe  I  saw 

the  missionary  baptize  two  hundred  and  forty-six 
members  of  the  new  tribe.  It  was  a  gray  Sunday  of 
the  long  dry  season,  a  day  in  July.  All  the  week 
before  by  the  little  ways  of  the  forest  the  Christians 
had  been  coming  in  to  the  gathering  of  the  tribe. 
Single  file  they  would  be  walking,  their  food  on  their 


154  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

backs,  their  children  slung  to-  their  sides.  The 
Saturday  night  those  who  came  thus  would  be 
sleeping  in  the  huts  of  fellow  Christians — often 
strangers  and  aliens  by  birth,  now  made  nigh  in 
Christ.  Those  who  might  not  find  shelter  made  a 
little  fire  in  the  open  and  slept  on  leaves.  In  this 
camp  and  by  these  many  little  fires,  under  the 
thatch  and  under  the  stars,  what  long  talk  of  the 
things  of  God  and  of  the  tribe  of  God  there  would 
be!  In  every  little  company  how  there  would  be 
one  or  more  master  Christians — the  wise  ones,  the 
strong  ones — and,  here  and  there  in  that  camp,  one 
to  be  baptized  on  the  morrow ! 

Probation  and  Man  or  woman — such  an  one  sitting 
instruction  by  the  night  fire  on  the  eve  of  such 

before  baptism.  .•  u  i.  i 

consummation — would  nave  come  by 

a  long  road  to  a  conspicuous  station.  Philip  and  the 
eunuch  falling  in  together  on  a  journey  spoke  a  little 
of  the  things  of  God  and  nothing  hindered  that  the 
happy  eunuch  be  baptized.  By  divine  permission  he 
was  baptized.  This  sudden  distinction  of  the  Ethio- 
pian eunuch — his  ready  acceptance  into  the  kingdom 
— how  many  an  apprentice  to  the  things  of  God 
has  "very  much  envied"  the  eunuch!  Myself,  I 
have  seen  the  envy  of  him  in  a  thousand  faces.  But 
as  God  creates  the  new  tribe  in  our  part  of  the 
forest.  He  does  not  so  create  it.  The  things  that 
hinder  that  the  little  new  things  be  baptized  are 
legion,  they  are  as  near  and  stubborn  as  the  things 
of  the  forest;  it  is  as  if  you  must  make  a  clearing 
in  them  and  must  make  a  garden,  yes,  and  must  show 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  165 

the  fruits  of  this  garden  to  the  eyes  of  the  people  of 
this  world  and  the  people  of  God  before  you  may 
be  baptized. 

Rainy  seasons  and  dry  seasons  pass  while  you 
achieve  these  fruits.  No  little  new  things  are  bap- 
tized, only  men  and  women  instructed  in  the  things 
of  God,  diligent  in  the  work  of  the  tribe  and  ap- 
proved of  their  neighbors.  Many  little  new  things 
never  come  to  their  maturity — they  fall.  Yet  on 
this  Sunday  of  which  I  speak  two  hundred  and  forty- 
six  stood  up  under  the  great  leaf  thatch  of  Elat 
church  as  approved  for  baptism.  Behind  them  were 
the  thousand  members  of  this  church,  and  behind 
these  again  five  thousand  men  and  women — all 
struck  into  silence — turning  untutored  faces  on  these 
chosen  ones  who  waited,  in  a  great  pride  and  a  great 
meekness,  their  baptism. 

Of  these  new  members  of  the  tribe  it  was  under- 
stood : 

That  they  were  new  men  in  Christ  Jesus. 

That  they  were  versed  in  the  essential  history  and 
the  custom  of  the  tribe  of  God. 

That  they  were  not,  nor  had  they  been  during  their 
years  of  probation,  liars,  thieves,  adulterers,  breakers 
of  the  Sabbath,  murderers,  or  sorcerers. 

That  they  were  at  peace  with  all  men  and  the 
debtors  of  none. 

That  they  had  been  diligent  in  the  business  of  the 
tribe,  with  converts  for  trophies. 

So  they  were  baptized.  Caught  in  their  neradi- 
cable  net  of  tattoo,  they  lifted  new  faces  to  the  man 


166  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

of  God  who,  passing  down  the  long  line  of  their 
row  upon  row,  mustered  them  by  their  names  into 
the  body  of  Christ. 

I  was  a  stranger  in  that  neighborhood  and  in  my 
eyes  those  ranks  of  Christians  were  as  grass.  But 
in  their  home  villages,  in  their  neighborhoods,  in 
their  clans,  their  names  were  known — they  had  a 
fame  of  good  works.  Of  the  least  of  them  it  might  be 
said,  as  the  Bulu  say  of  the  notable  achievements  of 
the  modest,  "the  little  parrot  has  eaten  all  the  palm 
nuts."  And  of  the  greater  it  might  be  said,  as  the 
Bulu  say  of  their  heroes,  "all  tribes  shelter  under  the 
palm."  So  much  are  these  major  members  of  the 
tribe  of  God  the  hope  and  the  help  of  their  villages, 
their  neighborhoods,  and  their  tribe. 
The  things  "But,"  question  the  white  disciples, 

of  failure.  ^g  they  consider  these  things,  follow- 

ing after  our  Lord  along  these  paths  of  the  forest, 
"these  many  black  men — do  they  hold?  Do  they 
persevere.''"  The  white  disciples  incline  an  ear; 
they  think  they  hear  in  that  long  caravan  the  sound 
of  stumbling  feet.  They  imagine,  say  they,  that  the 
black  man  falls;  and  they  are  right,  the  black  man 
falls. 

On  that  communion  Sunday  of  which  I  have 
spoken  there  were  stricken  from  the  roll  of  Elat 
church,  then  numbering  a  thousand  members,  the 
names  of  two;  and  twenty-one  members  were  sus- 
pended. This  was  publicly  done  and  the  causes  of 
discipline  specified.  I  remember  that  some  were 
suspended  for  quarreling,   some  for  the  selling  of 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  157 

women  into  unsuitable  marriages;  nine  had  broken 
the  seventh  commandment;  one  had  carried  a  load 
on  Sunday — this  with  his  own  consent;  one  had  made 
a  charm  to  regain  her  husband's  love;  one  had  made 
a  charm  for  hunting;  one  had,  in  an  extremity  of 
illness,  submitted  to  a  charm  at  the  hand  of  her 
heathen  mother,  and  some  had  been  lazy.  When  at 
dawn  the  drums  of  their  villages  had  called  the 
people  of  the  tribe  of  God  to  the  morning  prayers, 
these  latter  had  not  gathered  with  the  others  to 
"beg  of  God";  they  had  not  met  with  the  other 
Christians  of  a  Sunday.  They  no  longer  spoke  of  the 
things  of  God  to  the  ignorant  ones  in  their  own 
village,  nor  to  the  carriers  who  would  put  their 
heads  in  at  the  door  to  beg  a  drink  of  water.* 

I  would  say  at  once  that  these,  the  lazy  ones,  are 
of  the  least  hopeful  sort.  Of  this  sort  were  those  two 
who  were  stricken  from  the  church  roll  that  day, 
after  a  long  discipline  and  many  exhortations. 
These  are  the  laggers  behind,  and  it  must  be  that 
the  caravan,  moving  on,  leaves  them.  They  sleep 
now  and  take  their  rest.  Of  them  there  is  no  more 
mention  in  the  history  of  the  new  tribe. 

But  of  the  sinners — those  stumblers — there  is, 
more  often  than  not,  further  mention.  Caught 
again  in  the  old  snares  of  sex  and  avarice  and  super- 
stition they  are — as  there  is  record  at  every  com- 
munion season  in  every  African  church;  their  names 

*  This  was  Elat  Church  in  1913.  In  1916  the  membership  of 
the  church  was  4,074 :  six  per  cent  of  this  membership  was  dis- 
ciplined in  this  year. 


168  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

published  as  incompetents,  the  ten  commandments 
by  them  mutilated,  the  white  man  who  thought 
he  heard  them  stumbling,  justified;  all  this — and 
then  what? 

The  things  Surprise.  They  had  not  thought  to 

of  repentance.       Jq  j|.    j^  t^g  technique  of  the  art  of 

Christian  living  which  they  had  so  hardly  acquired, 
how  came  the  hand  to  slip?  "I  am  surprised,"  said 
one  such  to  me,  "I  am  like  an  animal  who  went 
away  on  a  visit  and  there  was  one  dug  a  pit  for  him, 
and  that  animal  returning  fell  into  the  pit.  He  did 
not  know  of  the  pit,  he  fell  in." 

And  shame.  To  have  been  so  inefficient,  to  have 
played  the  game  to  lose,  to  have  walked  yesterday 
among  the  people  of  God  a  good  workman  approved; 
and  to  be  today  a  bungler,  of  whom  it  is  begged  that 
for  a  time,  at  least,  you  keep  your  hands  off  lest 
you  spoil  the  things  of  God.  Oh !  the  hurt,  the  shame 
of  this. 

And  sometimes,  in  a  deeper  soil,  a  root  of  repent- 
ance. To  have  brought  shame  upon  the  people  of 
God  and  upon  the  name  of  Jesus!  I  remember  to 
have  seen  a  whole  community  suffer  vicariously  this 
deeper  sense  of  sin.  They  were  surprised,  on  a  com- 
munion Sunday,  by  the  suspension,  for  a  breach  of 
the  seventh  commandment,  of  an  elder  of  the 
church.  When  this  defection  of  their  honored  elder 
was  announced  tears  began  to  run  upon  the  faces 
of  the  church  members.  After  the  service  one  and 
another  who  came  to  greet  me  could  not  speak  for 
tears,  could  only  shake  the  head. 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  15» 

In  the  main  our  Bulu  Christian  is  more  con- 
sciously saint  than  sinner.  His  virtues  are  more  im- 
pressive to  himself  than  his  sins.  And  it  is  rather 
with  a  sense  of  fault  than  of  sin  that  the  stumbler, 
picking  himself  up  to  find  himself  alive,  sets  about 
repairs. 

"I  came  to  tell  you  that  I  broke  the  seventh  com- 
,  mandment  and  I  am  a  person  of  the  tribe  of  God. 
It  is  now  five  moons  that  I  am  a  person  of  God.  Do 
not  tell  me  that  I  cannot  be  a  Christian,  because  in 
my  heart  I  greatly  desire  to  be  a  Christian.  The 
breaking  that  I  broke,  it  was  yesterday — and  there 
is  still  tomorrow  that  I  may  be  a  Christian,"  How 
may  I  tell  in  a  book  how  much  in  this  voice  there 
was  of  shame  and  pride  and  urgence  or  how,  be- 
hind the  tattooed  face,  the  spirit  defied  the  failures 
of  the  flesh.? 

This  Bantu  who  cons  the  law  with  such  a  prag- 
matic passion,  how  his  poor  thumb  has  stained  the 
margins  of  the  second  and  the  seventh  and  the  eighth 
and  the  ninth  commandment;  and  he  who  was  once 
so  patient  in  the  practice  of  magic,  how  often  he  mas- 
ters his  discouragement  in  the  path  of  God.  "I  broke 
the  tying  yesterday;  but  I  will  not  break  it  again!" 
And  from  a  sinner  who  had  been  put  down  from  a 
high  place  in  the  tribe  of  God  and  who  had  suffered  a 
stunning  blow  to  his  pride, — this  word  at  last: 
"The  Lord  has  lit  my  lamp  again;  I  see  the  path." 

„  .  In  our  neighborhood  that  path  back 

Restoration.  . 

from  the  wilderness  to  the  shelter  of 

the  tribe  has  been  by  way  of  humility  and  effort. 


160  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

Rainy  seasons  and  dry  seasons  pass  you  on  that  way. 
The  proud  man  comes  back  humbly  and  the  rash, 
who  was  "quick  to  do  evil,"  walks  that  way  "as 
slow  as  a  chameleon."  Some  are  too  arrogant  to 
come  back  and  some  too  lazy.  Some  are  drawn  away 
by  the  things  of  this  world;  on  the  path  of  the  things 
of  this  world  there  wander  away  many  of  those 
young  Bulu  bucks,  schooled,  trained  to  be  teachers, 
to  be  dispensers  of  drugs,  to  be  overseers.  This  is  a 
special  type  of  loss,  an  impoverishment  of  the  tribe. 
I  have  seen  many  a  proud  spirit,  stung  to  the  quick, 
fling  away  to  lose  himself.  Yet  of  those  who  stumble 
in  the  ranks  of  the  mature  Christians,  many  and 
most  recover  themselves.  The  Lord  lights  their 
lamps.  And  at  every  communion  service  in  every 
church  of  our  forest,  for  some  who  are  disciplined, 
some  are  restored.  I  was  speaking  to  one  of  our 
senior  missionaries  about  this  matter — seeking  from 
this  wise  man  statistics  for  the  white  disciple,  and 
he  told  me  that  he  expected,  after  long  years  of 
experience,  to  discipline  one  church  member  in 
twenty;  and  that  he  could  count  on  his  two  hands 
those  church  members  who  had  not  responded  to 
discipline  and  whom  he  had  ultimately  excommuni- 
cated. This  was  a  record  of  twenty  years'  service 
in  the  Kamerun  interior. 

Of  secret  evil  in  the  church  I  will  say  that  where 
it  exists — and  it  does,  of  course,  exist — it  cannot 
persistently  exist.  We  live  in  the  open  by  circum- 
stance; "what  is  whispered  under  the  eaves  is  heard 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  161 

in  the  street  before  the  palaver  house."  There  is 
less  place  for  secret  evil  in  the  African  church  than 
in  the  church  at  home. 

So  much  for  stumblers  whose  proportion  among 
the  established  people  of  God  certainly  is  short  of 
the  tragic  one  in  twelve.  For  these  the  long  journeys 
of  the  white  man,  his  rough  inhabited  clearings,  his 
exiles,  and  the  gifts  of  the  poor  and  the  rich  of  the 
people  of  God — yes,  and  the  gift  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus,  and  His  long  journeyings  and  His  exile  and 
His  ultimate  passion,  all  this  outpouring  of  the  love 
of  God  for  such  as  these,  in  vain.  So  have  I  heard 
a  headman  tell  over  the  accumulated  goods  given 
on  a  woman,  who,  having  been  so  dearly  purchased, 
has  run  away  or  is  barren  or  is  dead. 
The  growth  Of   little   new   things    that   prosper, 

of  grace.  there  is  a  great  tribe.  They  increase 

daily;  they  are  born  into  the  kingdom  hourly.  They 
grow  in  grace.  By  God's  grace  they  are  what  they 
are.  His  grace  that  was  bestowed  upon  them  is  not 
in  vain.  That  dowry  cannot  be  counted  in  the 
palaver  house  as  waste.  It  is  for  this  that  the  new 
tribe  has  a  new  heart  and  a  new  freedom  and  a  new 
obedience,  a  new  custom — ^yes,  even  a  new  tongue 
and  a  new  face!  "Behold,  I  make  all  things  new," 
says  the  Lord  Jesus.  Today,  to  prove  it.  He  makes 
a  new  African,  "by  grace  and  true  words."  This 
mortal,  so  rescued  and  so  wrought  upon  by  Divinity, 
begins  to  bear  certain  marks  of  the  immortal  design. 
It  doth  not  yet  appear  what  he  shall  be,  but  he 
begins  to  be  blocked  in;  or,  say,  those  virtues  which 


162  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

are  the  foreordained  fruit  of  his  race  begin  to  show 
in  him. 

A  man  of  He  is  a  man  of  faith,  all  missionaries 

'*^**^-  are  agreed  upon  this. 

By  an  initial  act  of  faith  he  goes  out  from  his  own 
country — the  familiar  things  of  sex  and  gain  and 
fetish,  the  shelter  of  custom — not  knowing  whither 
he  goeth.  "The  old  things  of  the  past,"  said  a  man 
to  me,  "are  to  my  heart  ve  belik";  which  is  to  say 
a  deserted  village  no  longer  inhabited  and  falling 
into  ruin. 

"What  will  you  do  tomorrow.'''*  I  ask  a  woman, 
and  she  says  to  me,  "Why  will  you  ask  me  of  to- 
morrow? The  path  of  tomorrow — God  will  show 
me  that  path,"  and  God  who  has  shown  the  Bantu 
"the  straight  path"  compensates  His  daring  child 
with  a  near  sense  of  the  unseen. 

He  conceives  his  religious  adventure  in  the  terms 
of  his  experience. 

"I  am  no  more  a  person  of  the  town,"  says  a  friend 
of  mine,  "I  am  just  a  person  of  the  leafy  shelter; 
why  should  I,  who  am  a  passer-by  in  this  country, 
build  me  a  house?  I  am  as  a  hunter  who  makes  a 
shelter  of  leaves  and  sleeps  a  night  and  is  gone." 

"I  am  a  carrier,"  says  another,  "and  the  load  I 
carry  is  the  ten  tyings  and  the  things  of  God.  Heavy 
as  they  are  I  will  bear  to  carry  them,  because  this 
is  the  order." 

"Though  the  path  is  bad  there  is  a  Man  ahead 
of  me!" 

This  Man   in  the  path   ahead — how   much  He 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  16S 

figures  in  the  annals!  "Yesus  shows  me  the  path." 
"Yesus  helps  my  heart."  "Yesus  gives  me  an  iron 
heart."  "Because  of  Yesus,  I  endure!"  Who  are  we 
to  say  of  that  caravan,  threading  the  forest,  that 
they  do  not  endure  as  seeing  Him  who  is  invisible? 
A  man  of  Because  he  is  a  man  of  faith,  the 

prayer.  Bulu  is   a  man   of  prayer.  Strange 

sudden  intimacy  between  God  and  this  silly  child! 
It  grows  with  every  day  after  the  initiation.  I  have 
heard  the  first  stammer  of  the  first  salutation,  and 
that  was  in  the  house  of  one  Menge.  Menge  had 
six  children  and  so  was  an  enviable  woman.  Her 
little  hut  was  cluttered  with  little  wooden  bowls, 
with  the  day's  refuse,  with  odds  and  ends  of  service- 
able contraptions.  Menge,  busy  always  about  the 
things  of  food,  was  grinding  peanuts  between  an 
upper  and  nether  stone,  and  the  white  woman  was 
saying,  "You  who  have  borne  six  children,  Menge, 
how  can  you  bear  not  to  beg  of  God  on  their  ac- 
count.?" 

"I  not  beg  of  God.'*"  says  Menge;  "I  certainly  beg 
of  God!  Not  a  single  day  but  I  say  to  God,  Ah,  Tat! 
Ah,  Tat!  Ah,  Tat!"  This  is  to  say  and  to  reiterate. 
Ah,  Lord!  Thus  Menge  begged  of  God  for  her  six 
children.  Between  this  prayer  and  the  prayers  of 
Ze  Tembe,  a  young  Bulu  buck  long  a  Christian,  how 
much  of  experience! — "Oh,  God,  Thou  who  created 
us,  we  complain  to  Thee  of  Evil!  Evil  continually 
follows  after  us;  the  feet  of  the  evil  things  are  swift 
to  pursue  us.  But  we  ask  Thee,  was  Evil  the  first- 
born that  he  should  govern  us?  Good  was  the  first- 


164  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

born!  And  we  beg  of  Thee  who  created  us  that 
Thou  will  give  us  Good  to  rule  over  us !" 

This  same  voice  saying,  "Ah,  Christ,  who  had  the 
power  to  turn  stones  to  bread  and  did  not,  we  tell 
Thee  of  our  hearts  that  they  are  stone,  and  we  beg 
of  Thee  to  turn  them  to  that  true  bread  which  comes 
down  from  above!" 

Between  the  minor  stammer  of  Menge  and  the 
major  rhapsody  of  Ze  Tembe,  what  a  gamut  of 
prayer  goes  up!  The  prayers  of  the  barren  and  the 
prayers  of  the  Christian  parents  of  wayward  children; 
mean  prayers  of  revenge  and  beautiful  self-forget- 
ting intercessory  prayers;  little  prayers  about  a  lost 
cutlass,  and  a  quarrel ;  prayers  in  the  garden  over  the 
planting,  and  prayers  about  trading.  Little  groups 
of  Christians  sitting  on  their  heels  about  a  common 
kettle,  their  heads  bent  above  their  knees  in  a  grace 
before  food.  Little  groups  of  Christian  carriers 
gathered  at  night  about  a  common  fire  with  the 
forest  sighing  about  them,  they  pray.  At  dawn  in 
every  village  where  there  is  more  than  one  Chris- 
tian, the  brown  bodies  come  slipping  into  the  hut  of 
one,  they  leave  their  baskets  and  their  nets  and  their 
loads  of  rubber  at  the  door,  they  pray.  Beside  how 
many  graves  they  pray,  and  beside  how  many  child 
beds!  If,  indeed,  prayer  is  incense,  how  from  clear- 
ings in  the  Southern  Kamerun  there  will  be  on  the 
Sunday  morning  the  incense  of  ten  thousand  prayers ! 
A  man  of  And  he  is  a  man  of  works.  Of  this 

^°^^^'  I  must  be  speaking  at  length  in  the 

next  chapter,  for  it  is  out  of  the  works  of  the  new 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  166 

man  that  spring  the  customs  of  the  new  tribe.  But 
I  must  say  in  this  place,  that  having  shown  you  his 
faith  I  am  prepared  to  show  you  his  works.  Like 
Abraham,  his  works  and  his  faith  leave  their  marks 
by  the  path.  The  white  man's  camp,  say  the  Bulu, 
is  known  by  the  empty  tins;  Abraham's  camp  was 
known  by  the  stones  of  his  altar;  the  camp  of  how 
many  Bulu  is  known  by  a  deposit  of  the  Word  of 
God  in  the  hearts  of  the  villagers.  Many  little  com- 
panies of  two  Bulu  starve  for  friendship,  starve  for 
pleasure,  yes,  and  starve  for  a  good  square  meal, 
while  they  endure  to  live  in  a  foreign  tribe  on  the 
outskirts  of  a  strange  village,  ill-fed  by  careless 
women,  that  they  may  drive  in  the  first  wedge  of  the 
things  of  God. 

If  you  ask,  having  been  shown  their  faith,  to  see 
their  works,  I  will  show  you  the  symbol  of  the  works 
of  a  good  man.  That  is  his  tooth  brush.  He  jour- 
neyed on  the  paths  that  go  toward  the  rising  of  the 
sun  quite  alone,  and  everywhere  speaking  the  word 
of  God.  Everywhere  there  were  those  who  listened 
and  those  who  laughed.  But  for  every  man  who 
brought  to  this  man  of  God  his  sacred  fetishes  and 
who  said  that  he,  too,  he  desired  rather  to  follow 
the  things  of  God,  Bekalli  made  a  nick  in  the  handle 
of  his  tooth  brush.  It  was  a  commonplace  Bulu 
tooth  brush,  made  of  a  twig  frayed  at  the  end.  When 
this  man  came  to  the  end  of  his  journeys  he  was 
thin,  he  was  weary,  he  was  a  most  contented  man, 
and  he  had  over  two  hundred  little  nicks  on  the 
handle  of  his  tooth  brush. 


166  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

A  giver  I  as^  you  to  observe  that  this  carrier 

of  gifts.  of  the  ten  commandments,  this  seer 

of  things  invisible,  this  prayer  of  prayers,  is  a  giver 
of  gifts.  He  has  always  a  little  gift  about  his  person 
for  his  Lord.  If  he  carries  loads  for  hire,  if  he  sells 
to  a  white  trader  an  ivory,  if  he  gathers  rubber,  if  he 
sells  his  days  to  labor,  there  is  a  portion  of  his  gain 
for  the  things  of  the  Kingdom.  No  woman  so  poor 
but  she  has  a  few  coppers  for  the  plate.  For  this 
she  will  have  sat  hours  beside  the  path  that  goes 
to  the  sea,  her  offering  of  food  in  a  kettle  covered 
with  a  leaf,  until  a  carrier  pauses  to  buy  and  eat. 
Out  of  such  kettles  and  the  loads  of  rubber  and  the 
effort  of  consecutive  labor  and  the  catch  of  fish  from 
the  sea,  and  the  victory  over  racial  avarice,  the 
finances  of  the  new  tribe  are  assured.  If  I  tell  you 
that  the  beach  and  bush  tribes  of  our  mission  which 
had  at  a  given  date  an  enrollment  of  twenty  thousand 
converts,  and  a  church  membership  of  five  thous- 
and— if  I  tell  you  that  this  people  gave  in  the  year  of 
that  date  the  sum  of  fourteen  thousand  dollars, 
gathered  as  I  have  told  you,  and  applied  to  the 
service  of  the  Kingdom,  will  you  not  be  saying  that 
this  Bantu  is  a  man  of  works?  Himself  he  paid  the 
four  hundred  black  evangelists  who  w  ere  in  the  local 
schools  and  in  the  local  churches,  and  the  schools 
and  churches  among  foreign  tribes  to  the  east.  The 
Lord  Jesus,  standing  over  against  the  treasury, 
watches  this  child  of  His  unwrap  from  a  leaf  packet 
or  take  out  of  a  beaded  headdress  two  mites — and 
that  is  often  and  often  the  whole  fortune!  I  have 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  167 

seen — and  not  long  since — such  ofiFerings  as  forest 
people  bring  today  where  money  is  not  known,  heaps 
of  knives  forged  in  what  primitive  smithies,  rattan 
baskets  woven  in  what  obscure  villages,  round  nets 
with  a  withy  rim  and  knotted  of  a  cord  rolled,  during 
what  rare  hours  of  leisure,  between  the  thumb  and 
the  thigh  of  a  Christian  woman.  Little  wooden 
spoons  there  would  be  in  this  offering,  of  the  ancient, 
impeccable  patterns,  bottles  of  oil  pressed  out  of  the 
oil-palm  nut,  ivory  bracelets,  little  precious  neck- 
laces of  elephant  hairs  banded  with  brass  and  hung 
with  dogs'  teeth.  A  thousand  sacrifices  of  the  most 
personal  sort  were  here,  heaped  up,  smelling  of 
wood  smoke  and  mold  and  dried  fish — the  never-to- 
be-forgotten  odor  of  the  things  of  the  forest. 

Every  African  missionary  knows  the  character 
of  this  treasure,  and  over  against  every  such  treasury 
stands  the  Lord. 


168  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

SOME  LEADERS  OF  THE  BAGANDA 

The  Baganda  seemed  to  me  to  possess  not  only  a  peculiar 
aptitude  for  teaching  but  a  singular  desire  to  engage  in  it.  No 
sooner  was  a  reading  sheet  mastered  than  at  once  the  learner 
became  a  teacher.  It  was  the  same  with  the  Gospels,  every  fact 
noted,  every  truth  mastered  was  at  once  repeated  to  groups  of 
eager  inquirers.  It  was  a  most  touching  sight  to  see  little  groups 
scattered  about  here  and  there  in  the  church,  each  of  which  had 
in  its  centre  a  native  teacher  who  was  himself  at  other  times  in 
the  day  an  eager  learner. 

I  inquired  as  to  the  qualification  of  the  best  of  the  native 
workers  with  the  object  of  setting  them  apart  publicly  for  work 
as  Lay  Readers.  The  names  of  six  were  suggested  ....  (among 
others,  Sembera  Mackay).  He  was  the  first  of  those  under  in- 
struction in  Uganda  to  confess  his  belief  in  Christ  as  his  Saviour 
and  to  ask  for  baptism.  On  October  8,  1881,  he  brought  to 
Mackay  a  letter  written  by  himself,  "with  a  pointed  piece  of 
spear  grass  and  some  ink  of  dubious  manufacture."  It  ran  thus: 
"Bwana  Mackay,  Sembera  has  come  with  compliments  and  to 
give  you  great  news.  Will  you  baptise  him  because  he  believes 
the  words  of  Jesus  Christ?"  He  was  baptized  with  four  others  on 
March  18,  1882.  He,  too,  had  passed  through  all  the  troublous 
times  of  persecution  and  in  1886  was  elected  a  member  of  the 
church  council.  He  had  refused  a  chieftainship  in  order  to  be  free 
to  work  as  a  church  teacher. 

— Alfred  Tucker,  Bishop  of  Uganda,  Eighteen  Years  in 
Uganda,  p.  112,  2  vols.,  Arnold.  1908. 

AN  INCIDENT  IN  NYASALAND 

Here  as  so  often  in  the  history  of  missions,  the  messengers  had 
come  in  the  fulness  of  time.  God  in  His  providence  had  been 
preparing  the  people  to  receive  them  as  expected  guests.  Prophetic 
utterances,  that  gleamed  like  stars  in  the  dark  night  of  heathen- 
ism, had  prepared  the  way  for  them  in  a  manner  unknown  to  the 
church  that  sent  the  messengers  and  unknown  to  the  messengers 
themselves. 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  169 

Once,  while  instruction  was  being  imparted  to  the  recently 
baptized  Christians  in  Rungwe,  the  text  was  met  with,  "There 
shall  be  signs  in  the  heavens."  Thereupon  Numuagire  related  that 
about  thirty  years  previously  strange  signs  in  the  sky  had  at- 
tracted general  attention  in  Kondeland.  It  appeared  as  though 
•many  camp  fires  were  lit  there — then,  as  they  began  to  die  down, 
as  though  people  sat  around  them. 

A  man  of  her  people  named  Muakikando  had  then  uttered 
the  following  prophecy:  "There  is  also  another  Lord,  who  is 
very  great  and  good.  And  there  is  another  town,  which  is  very 
beautiful.  Are  our  chiefs  good?  No,  they  deceive  us.  Are  our 
villages  good?  No,  they  are  poor.  The  great  Lord  in  heaven  has 
sent  His  fire  to  us;  but  that  is  not  all.  He  will  send  people  to  us; 
people,  whom  we  have  never  seen,  will  come  and  tell  us  of  this 
Lord,  and  what  He  would  have  us  do. 

"These  people  will  bring  with  them  much  stuff  for  clothing. 
When  I  am  dead  you  will  see  that  I  speak  the  truth."  She  added 
to  this,  that  when  the  missionaries  Meyer  and  Richard  pitched 
their  tent  in  Muakapalile,  her  husband  had  at  once  said  to  her: 
"There  are  the  people  of  whom  Muakikando  had  spoken." 
Because  she  had  been  prepared  in  this  manner,  she  had  so  quickly 
grasped  God's  word.  Most  of  that  which  the  missionaries  had 
said  appeared  to  her  new;  but  it  seemed  to  her  as  if  she  had  heard 
some  of  the  message  previously. 

In  this  corner  of  the  earth  as  elsewhere,  the  old  order  was 
followed:  "in  the  fulness  of  time"  the  Saviour  appeared.  The 
surprisingly  good  reception  which  the  missionaries  everywhere 
received  was  accounted  for. 

— J.  Taylor  Hamilton,  The  Nyasa  Mission,  p.  74,  Bethle- 
hem Printing  Co.,  1912. 


170  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

A  WITNESS 

We  asked  our  guide  whether  he  had  known  any  of  those  who  had 
suffered  (in  the  persecution  of  1884).  "Yes!"  he  replied,  he 
"knew  most  of  them,  but  one  was  a  very  dear  friend,  almost  a 
brother"  to  him.  "Were  you  a  Christian  then?"  I  asked.  "No!" 
was  the  answer,  "but  my  friend  often  talked  to  me  about  Jesus 
Christ,  and  besought  me  to  become  a  disciple;  but  I  hardened  my 
heart."  "But  what  led  you  to  become  a  Christian  at  last?" 
"My  friend,  it  was  because  my  brother  died  for  what  he  believed 
to  be  true.  If  he  had  not  died  I  should  never  have  become  a 
Christian.  How  coidd  I  refuse  then?"  "And  how  did  he  die?" 
"My  friend,  first  they  speared  him,  and  then  they  burned  him," 
was  the  answer. 

And  who  was  this  that  thus  endured  this  two-fold  agony?  Was 
it  one  who  had  been  trained  from  infancy  in  Christian  truth,  who 
had  spent  his  manhood  in  battling  for  the  faith  once  delivered  to 
the  saints,  and  who  now  in  all  the  fervor  of  a  matured  belief  and 
the  power  of  a  life-long  conviction  laid  down  his  life  rather  than 
deny  his  Saviour?  Naj%  it  was  but  a  simple  lad  who  had  lived 
his  short  hfe  in  the  heart  of  heathen  Africa.  But  one  day  there 
was  unfolded  to  him  the  story  of  the  Cross.  He  believed  it.  He 
accepted  Christ  as  his  Saviour.  With  the  faith  of  a  little  child  he 
clung  to  Him  and  died  rather  than  deny  Him. 

— Alfred  R.  Tucker,  Eighteen  Years  in  Uganda,  p.  12S, 
Arnold.  London.  1908. 


THE  NEW  TRIBE  171 

QUESTIONS  FOR  CHAPTER  V. 

1.  About  how  many  adherents  to  Christianity  are  there  in 
your  field  in  Africa? 

2.  How  many  of  these  are  church  members? 

3.  What  is  the  average  time  between  the  conversion  of  a 
native  and  his  admission  to  the  church? 

4.  How  is  this  time  occupied  by  the  convert? 

5.  How  does  the  school  serve  as  a  feeder  for  the  church? 

6.  How  on  your  field  do  the  dispensary  and  the  hospital 
serve  as  feeders  for  the  church? 

7.  What  are  some  of  the  sacrifices  required  of  a  convert 
among  the  tribes  of  your  field? 

8.  Must  they  suffer  persecutions? 

9.  What  particular  Christian  virtues  do  your  missionaries 
claim  for  their  converts? 

10.  What  are  the  chief  causes  of  backsliding  among  them? 

11.  What  do  you  know  about  the  system  of  church  collectioo 
on  your  field? 

12.  Are  the  native  evangelists  in  your  field  paid  by  the  native 
chm-ch  or  by  the  home  Board? 

13.  Do  you  know  the  names  and  anything  of  the  lives  and 
characters  of  the  more  prominent  Chiistian  native  leaders? 


BIBLE  READING  AND  PRAYER 
FOR  CHAPTER  VI. 

Revelation  7:  9-17 
Prayer 

OLORD,  save  Thy  people  and  bless  Thine 
inheritance:  feed  them  also,  and  lift  them 
up  for  ever.  Remember,  O  Lord,  Thy  con- 
gregation, which  Thou  hast  purchased  of  old:  pour 
out  Thy  Spirit  as  floods  upon  the  dry  ground,  and 
refresh  Thy  waiting  heritage.  Let  Thy  priests  be 
clothed  with  righteousness,  and  let  Thy  saints  shout 
for  joy.  Show  Thy  mercy  also  unto  them  that  are 
afar  off,  and  gather  all  the  lost  sheep  into  Thy  fold; 
for  the  sake  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  Amen." 
— Book  of  Common  Worship. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


THE   NEW    CUSTOM 


Secular 


There  are  more  roots  than  the  reli- 
influences  gious  root  to  the  new  custom  of  the 

for  change.  people    of    our    neighborhood.  The 

white  man  and  his  government  have  had  power  to 
modify  the  aspect  and  the  habit  of  Hfe  upon  our 
beaches  and  throughout  our  forest.  The  government 
with  its  curious  regard  for  human  Hfe  has  checked 
so  many  of  the  natural  sports  of  the  Bulu. 
New  attitudes  Intertribal  wars  are  discouraged, 
toward  violence.  Murder  is  discouraged.  Abuse  of 
women  is  discouraged.  Certainly,  the  forest  is  wide 
and  the  highway  is  narrow;  in  the  backwoods  town 
the  old  evils  flourish;  but  the  government  enlarges 
its  sphere,  its  curious  preferences  are  enforced  upon 
a  wider  and  wider  area,  until  it  begins  to  look  as  if 
tomorrow  a  man  must  hunt  a  corner  in  which  to  kill 
his  own  wife.  Our  Bulu  suffers  new  hesitations  along 
the  old  paths  of  violence. 

New  thoughts  He  entertains,  too,  new  thoughts  of 
of  labor.  labor.  The  yearly  head  tax,  with  us 

a  matter  of  from  a  dollar  and  a  half  to  two  fifty,  has 
had  a  tremendous  influence  in  modifying  the  thought 
and  life  of  the  tribe.  The  head  tax  is  the  equivalent 
of  a  month's  unskilled  labor;  every  adult  male  is 
taxed.  Thus,  every  man  must  discharge  once  every 


174  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

year  a  debt  to  be  met  either  by  labor  or  by  cash. 
Influence  The  introduction  of  money  as  cur- 

of  money.  rency  has  had  influences  very  wide- 

spread and  subtle.  The  nkukum  (the  rich  man)  of 
the  primitive  type  has  so  clumsy  a  possession  in  the 
bodies  of  women,  of  wandering  sheep,  in  the  big 
tusks  of  ivory, — a  possession  so  hard  to  be  hoarded, 
so  prone  to  run  away,  to  be  begged  away,  to  die, 
that  the  nkukum  must  be  clever  indeed  and  sleep- 
less. Cash  is  a  commodity  so  small  that  it  can  be 
hidden ;  your  very  brother  need  not  know  that  you 
have  it.  It  has  an  understood,  unvarying  value.  It 
accumulates  by  the  process  of  labor  with  a  curious 
inevitability,  as  if  a  hen  were  guaranteed  to  lay  a 
daily  egg. 

I  have  seen  a  young  hammock  carrier,  not  clever, 
no  more  than  diligent,  unwrap  from  a  bandanna 
handkerchief  a  little  fortune  of  nearly  three  hundred 
marks.  We  had  come  in  our  journeyings  to  sleep  in 
a  village  where  there  was  an  evangelist.  It  pleased 
my  young  carrier,  because  he  was  about  to  spend  the 
night  with  his  brothers  in  a  near-by  town,  to  leave  his 
fortune  with  his  friend,  the  man  of  God.  He  knelt 
upon  the  clay  floor  of  the  evangelist's  house  and  by 
the  light  of  my  lantern  he  ranged  his  money  in  piles 
of  ten  marks.  Having  verified  the  amount  he  tied 
it  again  in  the  handkerchief  and  passed  it  over  to 
Ze.  In  the  person  of  that  young  man  depositing  his 
fortune  in  the  bank  of  an  honest  man's  hand  I  first 
realized  the  emancipating  poVer  of  cash,  and  its 
relation  to  the  changing  custom  of  the  tribe. 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  176 

The  ambition  of  the  black  man, 
wherever  the  white  man  has  "shown 
his  body,"  to  dress  Hke  the  white  man,  to  be  housed 
Hke  the  white  man,  to  have  a  portion  in  the  white 
man's  culture — this  passion  of  imitation  has  modi- 
fied, along  the  white  man's  thoroughfares,  the  aspect 
of  the  black  man  and  his  life.  "That  old  thing," 
the  bark  cloth — that  "thing  of  the  birth  of  men" — 
is  worn  only  by  backwoodsmen  nowadays.  I  saw 
a  maker  and  wearer  of  bark  cloth  at  Metet  two  years 
ago.  He  was  an  old  man  and  beginning  to  have  a 
certain  local  fame  for  skill  in  a  craft  that  is  disappear- 
ing. Yet,  ten  years  ago  half  the  carriers  who  passed 
our  way  wore  bark  cloth.  More  than  half  the  male 
carriers  were  elaborately  coifed  ten  years  ago,  and 
all  the  women.  Into  the  windows  of  our  little  bark 
house  they  used  to  thrust  what  brave  heads  strung 
and  studded  with  beads  and  shells  and  brass!  Two 
years  ago  I  traveled  among  the  Ntum,  the  master 
hairdressers,  whose  women  are  headed  like  brilliant 
flowers.  But  not  a  man  was  coifed.  "Because," 
they  told  me,  "since  we  have  seen  the  white  man 
we  know  that  the  headdress  is  a  thing  of  women  and 
we  feel  shame  to  dress  the  heads  of  our  men."  There 
is  an  end  of  that  art  in  that  neighborhood.  Wherever 
the  black  man  sees  the  white  man  he  feels  shame 
for  his  own  rusticity,  for  his  lack  of  fashion.  His 
native  sense  of  personal  ornament,  which  in  our 
neighborhood  has  been  distinctive,  not  grotesque, 
he  sacrifices;  his  freedom  from  the  burden  of  clothing 
he  sacrifices;  all  the  harmony  of  his  person  and  his 


176  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

aspect  of  appropriate  forest  beauty  he  sacrifices  to 
his  conviction  that  the  white  man  is  the  glass  of 
fashion  and  the  mold  of  form — all  but  his  dark 
skin  and  his  ineradicable  tattoo.  Poor  mimic  of 
white  men — how  his  glory  is  departed! 
New  need  and  Out  of  his  new  custom  and  the  en- 
new  supply.  campment  of  white  men  in  his 
country  new  needs  are  born,  new  industries  urged 
upon  him,  old  needs  supplied  in  new  ways.  Now  he 
need  no  longer  smelt  the  iron  out  of  the  rock;  there 
is  a  trader  to  sell  him  an  imported  cutlass  for  cash. 
The  noble  and  complacent  company  of  native 
blacksmiths  recedes  from  the  main-traveled  regions. 
There  is  less  and  less  need  to  bake  earthen  pots,  to 
hew  vessels  of  wood,  to  carve  the  hairpins  of  ebony, 
or  the  spoons  of  the  old  and  charming  designs.  All 
these  things  are  imported  and  are  to  be  had  along 
the  highways  for  cash.  Here  are  offered  "new  lamps 
for  old."  And  now  it  is  urged  upon  men  that  they 
be  tailors,  cobblers,  carpenters;  yes,  it  is  even  urged 
upon  men  that  they  take  a  hoe  and,  like  women,  till 
the  ground ! 

Hew  These  are  a  few  of  the  modifications 

opportunities.  ^f  uf^  which  violently  thrust  the 
black  man  out  of  his  immemorial  groove.  Many  of 
these  modifications  you  will  perceive  to  be  oppor- 
tunities which  he  is  not  fitted  to  meet.  "The  things 
of  the  Fathers"  have  not  prepared  him  for  these 
things.  Except  the  Lord  take  him  up  he  is  to  make 
a  poor  showing  in  the  face  of  these  opportunities. 
Left  to  his  own  poor  adjustments  under  the  shock 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  177 

of  the  things  of  the  white  man  there  is  a  swift  col- 
lapse. Let  any  old  coaster,  trader  or  government, 
tell  you  of  the  wreckage. 

How  to  meet  with  honor  the  new  opportunities 
of  cash  and  commerce,  labor  and  government — 
this  essential  education  so  necessary  to  a  primitive 
people  in  the  too  sudden  dawn  of  a  new  day — this 
is  the  immediate  service  of  the  things  of  God.  For 
this  the  "medicine"  of  agricultural  schools,  indus- 
trial schools,  trades  and  training.  For  this  the 
medicine  of  discipline  in  the  relation  between  time 
and  money,  between  mine  and  thine.  For  this 
long  oppositions  to  begging,  hospitalities  refused 
by  the  missionary  and  hospitalities  paid  for  by  him. 
For  this  the  most  rigid  insistence  upon  money  values, 
until  money  and  its  moral  significance  shall  have 
meaning  to  the  black  man.  Standards  of  value, 
money,  time,  contract, — these  to  be  driven  into  the 
mind  of  the  African  that  he  may  meet  with  honor 
his  too  sudden  opportunities. 

And  how  to  cope  with  the  disinte- 
grating  influences  of  a  foreign,  im- 
posed custom — for  not  all  the  effects  of  a  white 
man's  government  are  benign.  Old  habits  of  dis- 
cipline are  broken  down,  old  notions  of  responsibility 
laid  aside;  the  very  amenities  are  forgotten  in  a 
country  where  the  criminal  code  has  suffered  a 
sudden  and  perplexing  change,  where  a  man  may  be 
hanged  for  cannibalism,  and  a  disobedient  wife  may 
no  longer  be  tied  to  a  pillar  of  her  husband's  house 
and    burned    with    a    torch.  Nowadays    the    very 


178  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

women  have  a  "hunger  for  goods,"  they  do  not  so 
much  as  ask  their  husbands'  leave  to  carry  loads 
on  long  journeys.  They  themselves  are  paid  for  such 
labor,  they  themselves  spend  their  wage.  The  old 
discipline  breaks  down  in  a  thousand  ways  among  a 
people  without  a  moral  substitute.  Impudence, 
thieving,  drunkenness,  venereal  disease,  anarchy  are 
swift  upon  the  white  man's  highway,  where  the 
headmen  of  the  villages  are  powerless  to  inflict  upon 
passing  caravans  the  old  penalties  attaching  to  the 
breach  of  the  old  communal  laws. 
God's  law  the  The  life  of  the  clan,  of  the  village, 
new  restraint.  of  the  family,  suffers  from  the  lack 
of  the  former  habits  of  restraint — from  the  new 
habits  of  freedom.  It  must  be  that  the  Lord  will 
take  up  these  fragment?:  of  the  old  order  and  save 
them  from  waste.  TJiC  law  of  God  is  ^'medicine"  for 
the  disorders  of  the  time  of  transition.  The  ten 
tyings, — these  are  yokes  upon  the  necks  of  young 
Bulu  bucks  who  wander  unmolested  down  paths 
cut  by  the  white  man.  The  old  things  pass  away 
and  the  white  man  makes  new  rules  for  old.  But 
God  still  says  to  the  eager  young  of  the  black  man, 
"Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother."  Upon  their 
hot  ambitions  He  blows  a  cooling  breath,  "Thou 
shalt  not  covet."  In  the  heart  of  that  girl  carrying 
a  load  in  a  miscellaneous  caravan — she  who  might 
not,  in  the  old  days,  so  much  as  show  herself  in  the 
palaver  house  unless  her  owner  called  her — in  the 
heart  in  that  emancipated  young  body,  the  voice 
of  God  says,  "Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery." 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  179 

Not  all  the  new  customs  of  our  Bulu  are  rooted  in 

religion;  surely  you  begin  to  see  this,  and  to  see  that 

the  things  of  God  must  serve  the  black  man  to  meet 

new  opportunities  and  to  mend  the  breaches  in  the 

walls  of  his  city. 

„.  These  cities  whose  walls  have  been 

ajic  new  town* 

mended  by  men  of  the  tribe  of  God — 

you  come  upon  them  here  and  there  in  our  forests. 

For  fifty  villages  where  there  are  people  of  the  tribe 

of  God,  there  will  be  one  village  where  the  headman 

is  a  Christian.  In  such  a  town  as  this  there  is  an 

extraordinary    modification    of    custom.  In    every 

community  where  the  people  of  God  are  in  force 

there  will  be  a  thatched  roof  which  is  the  school  of 

a  week  day,  and  of  a  Sabbath,  the  church.  But 

come  into  the  town  of  Bekui  Amuku  of  a  week  day 

and  you  will  find  that  impressive  Christian  headman 

learning  his  letters,  his  big  body  crowded  in  among 

the  bodies  of  the  children  of  his  village.  And  of 

a  Sunday,  under  the  same  roof,  Bekui  Amuku  will 

be  leading  his  people  in  prayer.  His  is  a  Christian 

town  with  a  Christian  headman.  All  the  Christian 

ambition  and  effort  and  patience  of  his  people  are 

encouraged  by  his  example. 

I  remember  one  night,  ten  years  ago,  when  the 

first  Christian  headman  of  our  neighborhood  came 

to  beg  of  the  people  of  God  a  leader,  that  his  town 

might  be  a  Christian  town.  Old  Mejio,  austere  and 

silent,  with  two  "real  men"  of  his  village,  on  that 

night  long  ago,  outlined  their  intention — their  new 

thought — ^for  their  village.  They  were  the  pioneers 


180  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

of  their  tribe,  middle-aged  radicals — than  which 
there  is  no  more  stubborn  radical.  Their  purpose 
never  has  flagged,  their  village  took  the  form  they 
had  planned.  And  if  today  the  village  of  Lam,  on  the 
road  to  the  interior,  is  a  less  radical  affair  than  it 
had  seemed  in  the  day  of  its  inception — why,  this 
is  the  fate  of  all  radical  ventures.  In  this  town  is  a 
church  built  of  bark  by  the  townspeople,  by  them 
thatched  with  a  thousand  leaves  of  the  palm  tree. 
Here  is  the  school  and  a  little  house  for  the  Bulu 
who  is  the  school  teacher.  By  the  townspeople  he 
is  paid,  by  the  women  of  the  town  he  is  fed.  Here 
is  an  evangelist,  paid,  too,  by  the  townspeople. 
Is  he  not  their  father?  Old  Mejio  sitting  in  his 
palaver  house  sees  the  boys  go  to  school  and  the 
girls.  Morning  and  evening  he  sees  the  villagers 
climb  the  hill  to  pray  in  God's  house,  carriers  from 
the  far  places  of  the  forest  trail  in  the  wake  of  these. 
Myself  on  a  Sunday  of  the  dry  season,  I  have  seen  a 
hundred  foreigners  drop  their  loads  to  enter  the 
church  at  Lam.  I  have  lain  down  at  peace  in  that 
town  with  the  knowledge  that  no  black  woman  would 
suffer  violence  there,  no  witchcraft  would  be  prac- 
tised, no  cruelties  perpetrated.  Of  such  a  town  as 
this  a  young  girl  said  to  me,  "It  is  good  to  be  there; 
one  may  be  merry  without  fear."  Such  a  common 
well-being  as  this  prevails  only  in  the  town  of  a 
Christian  headman. 

New  men  and  But  the  things  of  God  are  not  de- 
new thoughts.  layed  by  the  sloth  of  princes;  where 
the  king's  heart  is  still  evil  there  is  yet  a  prophet 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  181 

to  care  for  the  tribe  of  God.  In  how  many  towns 
where  the  headman  is  still  the  old  Adam,  God  has 
set  a  new  man  of  His  own  choosing  to  serve  His 
children.  He  has  less  need  of  new  towns  than  of 
new  men,  with  new  customs,  with  new  thoughts. 

New  men — and  in  my  heart  I  see  them.  In  my 
first  year  I  saw  four  new  men  in  the  making,  four 
middle-aged  men  who  were  then  born  again.  In 
my  last  year  I  heard  each  of  these  four  men  address 
his  own  congregation  in  his  own  parish.  It  would  be 
hard  to  choose  between  them  for  faith  or  for  works. 
In  my  heart  I  see  one  of  them,  Bian  by  name,  and 
that  name  means  "medicine."  He  stands  before  his 
people  of  a  Sunday  in  a  white  singlet  and  a  loin 
cloth;  no  shoes  or  other  white  man's  fashion  for 
Bian.  He  is  deliberate,  with  a  virile,  rather  raucous 
voice,  a  controlled  emotion,  and  an  absolute  con- 
viction. On  this  day  he  spoke  about  the  supremacy 
of  Christ  in  the  councils  of  God,  not  that  he  so 
analysed  his  subject.  Said  he : 

"Righteousness  is  three:  the  righteousness  of  God 
embodied  in  Christ,  the  righteousness  of  the  Word 
of  God  forever  showing  forth  Christ,  and  the 
righteousness  of  the  missionary  (or  evangel)  con- 
tinually preaching  Christ."  And  to  his  people  he 
said: 

"I  shudder  for  you  that  you  put  the  things  of  this 
world  before  the  things  of  Christ  so  that  you  say, 
*I  am  hated,  else  I  would  have  been  made  a  church 
member.  I  am  hated,  else  I  would  have  been  made 
an   elder!'  What    is    a   church    member.''  What   is 


182  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

an  elder?  Has  God  required  of  you  that  you  should 
be  a  church  member?  Or  an  elder?  He  has  required 
of  you  this  one  thing — that  you  should  believe  in 
Christ!  He  is  not  like  a  man  who  is  giving  his 
daughter  in  marriage  and  who  names  in  the  dowry 
many  kinds  of  goods  and  when  the  husband  has 
paid  all  these  he  says,  'Still  another  thing  you  must 
find  and  give  me.'  So  that  the  poor  husband  says, 
'I  have  given  all.  Where  shall  I  find  this  one  thing 
more?'  Not  so  has  God  dealt  with  you.  He  has 
named  but  one  thing  that  you  must  give  to  possess 
Christ,  that  is — your  faith.  Just  your  faith.  And 
you  man  of  God,  if  you  are  rich  and  possess  goats 
and  sheep  and  hens  and  much  goods,  be  always 
saying,  'One  thing  I  possess,  Christ!'  And  you  poor 
man  of  God,  still  be  saying,  'Even  so;  one  thing  I 
possess,  Christ!'" 

So  urges  the  new  man  speaking  his  new  thought 
of  gain,  of  possession,  of  ambition. 

Another  of  these  four  men,  Bekalli,  when  he  would 
be  married  and  had  given  the  last  of  the  dogs  and 
the  dog  bells,  the  sheep  and  the  guns,  when  the  last 
articles  of  the  dowry  had  been  accepted  by  the 
bride's  kinsfolk — Bekalli  thought  how  he  might 
best  express  his  new  thought  of  the  new  custom  of  a 
Christian  marriage.  The  missionaiy  has  not  in  our 
neighborhood  instituted  a  religious  marriage  cere- 
mony; it  has  been  required  of  Christian  men  that 
they  shall  pay  the  last  item  ot"  barter  before  con- 
summating t'le  marriage,  this  being  the  condition 
of  an  honorable  mating.  Bekalli,  having  come  to  an 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  183 

end  of  these  transactions  at  the  close  of  a  day,  lit 
his  lantern  and  went  about  among  his  friends, 
calling  them  to  a  thanksgiving  service,  I  was  among 
those  called.  I  followed  the  light  of  that  lantern 
under  the  thatch  of  the  church  and  saw  that  little 
man  with  the  tender  face  of  a  black  apostle  John 
read  the  Word  of  God.  I  heard  him  thank  God  for 
his  wife  and  beg  of  Him  to  make  the  "paths  of 
marriage  straight  paths,"  which  God  has  done. 
Bekalli  and  his  wife  have  been  given  power  to 
demonstrate  the  endurance  and  the  peace  and  the 
love  of  Christian  marriage. 

New  women  and  New  men,  new  thoughts  of  sex,  new 
law  marriage.  customs  of  marriage — these  make 
new  women. 

Abwa  was  one  of  the  wives  of  Bekui  Amuku. 
Almost,  she  was  the  favorite  wife,  but  not  altogether 
so;  for  when,  led  by  Abwa,  Bekui  became  a  Christian 
he  chose  another  of  his  women  for  his  wife.  Yet  of 
Abwa  he  said  that  he  would  never  sell  her.  When  a 
Christian  man,  "a  man  strong  in  God,"  should 
desire  Abwa,  and  she,  too,  should  desire  him,  then 
Abwa  would  be  given  in  marriage  without  price. 
Never  would  he  ask  goods  for  Abwa,  rather  he  would 
give  a  goat  with  this  woman  whom  he  had  loved,  and 
so  he  did.  On  the  day  that  the  evangelist  Melom — 
a  young  man  strong  in  God  and  acceptable  to  Abwa 
— on  the  day  that  Melom  took  Abwa  from  the  hands 
of  Bekui,  he  took  her  "free,"  and  a  goat  walked 
with  that  little  caravan  on  the  path  to  Melom's 
town.  Do  not  think  that  such  new  thoughts  of  sex 


184  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

and  of  gain  were  without  power  to  mold  a  woman  so 
radically  dealt  with.  I  have  followed  that  caravan 
of  the  new  man  and  the  new  woman  bound  by  the 
new  marriage  along  many  paths  of  the  forest,  to 
find  an  ember  of  their  new  thought  still  bright  in 
many  a  dim  hut.  "Surely  you  speak  like  one  who  is 
not  ignorant  of  the  Word  of  God.''"  I  have  asked 
more  than  one  responsive  woman  of  the  backwoods, 
who  has  said,  "A  man  and  his  wife,  people  of  God 
slept  a  night,  two  nights,  three  nights  in  my  town; 
that  woman's  name  was  Abwa.  She  was  a  woman 
certainly  strong  in  the  new  things,  and  I  very  much 
remember  the  word  that  she  taught  me." 

This  is  the  most  radical  marriage  that  has  come 
to  my  knowledge,  but  a  thousand  new  words  I  have 
heard  from  lesser  men  and  women.  A  Bulu  of  the 
old-fashioned  type,  converted  in  full  manhood,  was 
arranging  his  future;  his  name  was  Se  Menge.  His 
brother  was  a  headman  with  women  to  spare,  and 
had  kept  Se  Menge  supplied  with  a  mate  from  the 
women  of  his  own  town.  Becoming  a  Christian, 
Se  Menge  must  fend  for  himself;  as  Ibia  has  said 
"Every  Christian,  like  an  orphan  chick,  dependent 
on  his  own  bill."  How  do  I  know  upon  how  many 
women  Se  Menge  cast  an  appraising  eye.''  One  day 
he  announced  to  me  that  he  had  found  a  wife. 

"Is  she  young,  is  she  beautiful?"  asked  the  white 
woman,  knowing  how  hard  is  the  road  of  monogamy 
to  unused  Bulu  feet. 

"She  is  not  very  young  and  I  am  not  saying  that 
she  excels  for  beauty,  but  she  is  a  person  of  the 


BULU  WOMAN 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  185 

tribe  of  God,  and  her  sisters  are  of  that  tribe  and 
her  brothers.  Since  I  am  a  Christian,  I  see  that 
marriages  are  of  two  kinds,  the  marriage  of  desire 
and  the  marriage  of  friendship.  This  marriage  that 
I  am  marrying,  I  am  able  to  say  of  it  that  it  is  a 
marriage  of  friendship,"  said  this  middle-aged  Bulu 
man  with  dignity. 

Later,  the  white  woman  met  the  little  Bulu  object 
of  the  marriage  of  friendship;  she  was  not  far  from 
young,  and  in  the  fashion  of  her  tribe  she  was  beauti- 
ful. Her  husband,  plain  man  that  he  was  and  dull, 
had  yet  devised  a  thought  which  should  honor  her 
marriage  and  his  with  a  new  dignity. 
The  new  mar-       ^^  is,  of  course,  among  the  younger 

riage  and  the       members  of  the  tribe  of  God  that  the 

mission   school.  •  •  . 

new     marriage     is     most     common. 

Young  school-bred  men  seek  young  girls  who  shall 

be  pliable  to  the  new  training.  Many  a  little  Bulu 

gazelle  of  a  girl  is  put  into  the  hands  of  a  white 

woman  that  a  suitable  wife  may  be  made  of  her. 

Now  she  will  be  one  of  a  hundred  such  young,  wild 

things  to  be  disciplined,  to  be  taught  the  things  of 

God,  while  she  yet  pursues  the  things  of  the  Bulu 

woman, — the   things    of   cooking,    of   planting,    of 

harvesting.  To  read  the  Word  of  God,  to  count 

money,  herself  to  sew  her  "things  of  ornament" — 

so  much  of  the  white  woman's  art  will  be  exacted 

of  her.  To  keep  her  body  clean,  her  bit  of  cloth 

clean,  to  hold  her  wild  tongue,  to  come  when  she  is 

bidden,  and  to  keep  herself  for  her  future  husband 

alone, — this  is  the  sum  of  the  accomplishments  which 


18C  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

are  so  much  desired  by  that  new  young  African 
who  means  to  make  a  new  wife  of  the  young  girl 
upon  whom  he  is  giving  goods,  and  who  will  not  be 
taken  by  him  in  marriage  until  she  is  marriageable. 
T^^  °®^™""  How  many  such  young  things,  the 
service.  husband   seventeen   to   twenty,    the 

little  bride  fourteen  to  fifteen  years  of  age,  have  gone 
away  together  to  establsh  in  their  own  towns  or  in 
the  towns  of  alien  tribes  the  things  of  the  new  mar- 
riage. And  I  must  be  saying,  how  many  of  these  have 
come  to  grief!  by  way  of  the  girl's  unruly  tongue, 
or  her  temper,  or  the  hand  that  unbarred  the  hut 
to  a  lover;  by  way  of  the  young  man's  arrogance,  or 
his  exactions,  or  his  infidelity.  Many  little  new 
marriages  that  were  to  have  been  candles  to  light  a 
naughty  world  have  guttered  down  into  the  original 
darkness.  But  how  many  there  are,  black  men  and 
white,  to  witness  that  the  marriage  of  the  people  of 
God  is  indeed  strong;  boys  and  girls  that  were  our 
mission  children,  are  men  and  women  practising 
with  honor  the  new  things  of  sex  at  home  and  abroad. 
I  have  come  upon  them  in  what  lonely  backwoods; 
young  teachers,  young  evangelists  and  their  little 
wives,  suffering  exile  for  Christ's  sake.  That  girl 
asking  a  blessing  over  food  of  another's  planting, 
sleeping  under  the  thatch  of  strangers,  cheerfully 
enduring  a  circumstance  of  exile  which  is  the  supreme 
hardship  for  a  woman  of  her  tribe,  and  commendmg 
daily  to  the  heathen  about  her — by  her  Christian 
face,  her  Christian  grace — the  things  of  the  Lord 
Jesus — how  proud  of  her  I  have  been  and  how  often 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  187 

astonished!  Yes,  I  have  found  such  an  one  often  in 
my  journeys,  to  amaze  me.  She  had  never  promised 
us  in  her  school  days  so  much.  She  had  been  a  wild 
little  girl,  very  heedless,  very  shallow.  Here  she  is, 
by  her  husband's  side  in  some  of  the  outposts  of  the 
things  of  God,  demonstrating  with  dignity  the  things 
of  the  Christian  home,  with  dignity  and  with  humil- 
ity tending,  before  the  attentive  eyes  of  ignorant 
women,  the  sacred  shrine  of  the  new  marriage. 

As  there  is  a  new  husband  and  a  new 
wife  there  is  also  a  new  father  and  a 
new  mother.  A  father  who  sees  in  the  little  girl 
born  to  him  more  than  goods,  who  has  other  am- 
bitions for  his  little  son  than  that  he  shall  be  a  rich 
man,  owner  of  many  women. 

This  new  mother  goes  down  into  her  maternal 
experience  not  unaccompanied — there  is  a  rod  and 
staff  to  comfort  her. 

I  remember  such  a  new  father  and  mother  showing 
me  their  baby,  as  it  was  proper  that  they  should  do, 
for  was  I  not  their  mother,  having  known  them 
since  their  childhood?  Atongon  was  perhaps  fifteen; 
Oye'e  was  twenty.  Oye'e  was  overdressed,  he  wore 
all  available  white  man's  ornament,  including  a  high 
collar  and  pointed  shoes.  I  agree  that  he  was  gro- 
tesque, as  too  much  the  aspect  of  young  Africa  is 
grotesque.  But  those  young  feet  had  been  beautiful 
on  long  journeys,  bringing  good  tidings  to  the  tribes 
to  the  east.  Little  Atongon  had  been  with  her 
husband  until  she  must  prepare  for  her  little  one. 
This  she  had  done  in  her  mother's  town  near  the 


188  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

mission  clearing.  Now  I  must  take  their  son  in  my 
arms.  They  told  me  that  his  name  was  Isaac — for 
the  child  of  Christian  parents  must  always  have 
a  Bible  name.  But  of  this  little  Isaac  I  was  told, 
"No,  really  he  has  no  Bulu  nickname.  No  other 
name  than  Isaac  for  this  little  one!"  And  then  I 
heard  how  Atongon  had  dreamed.  Yes,  she  had 
wakened  in  the  dark  before  the  dawn  of  a  certain 
day  and  had  spoken  to  Oye'e  of  their  child.  The 
Lord  had  told  her  that  they  were  to  have  a  child, 
and  in  her  dream  she  perceived  that  there  was  in- 
deed a  child,  whose  little  hand  the  Lord  held  in 
His  hand;  the  other  little  hand  He  placed  in  the  hand 
of  Atongon,  saying  to  her,  "This  is  your  child;  you 
will  call  him  Isaac." 

So  were  you  named,  little  Isaac,  and  of  your 
mother  it  was  told  me  that  she  would  have  no  thing 
of  magic  about  her  child-bed.  No,  when  the  mis- 
sionary doctor  came  to  see  how  it  fared  with  Atongon, 
whose  husband  was  still  inland  on  the  business  of 
the  tribe  of  God,  he  found  a  person  of  God,  a  black 
midwife  there,  and  when  you  were  born  it  was  mid- 
night. It  was  very  still  in  the  village,  only  your 
mother  watched  and  the  doctor  and  the  old  black 
woman  who  was  a  person  of  the  tribe  of  God.  When 
you  were  placed  beside  your  little  mother  she  put 
her  hand  out  to  where  there  lay  upon  the  slattings 
of  her  bamboo  bed  a  hymn  book.  It  was  open  at  a 
hymn  which  your  mother  had  chosen  before  your 
birth.  "For,"  said  she  to  the  doctor,  "I  said  in  my 
heart,  when  I  shall  see  my  child  we  will  sing  this 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  189 

hymn.  Therefore,  sing  it!"  Then  the  doctor  and 
the  old  woman  and  your  little  mother  sang  a  hymn 
together  on  your  birthnight  while  the  village  and 
the  things  of  evil  slept.  Thus  were  you  born  to  a 
Christian  name  of  a  mother  who  was  a  handmaid  of 
the  Lord! 

Old  marriages  This  marriage  of  the  young  who  are 
made  new.  members   of   the   tribe — this   is   the 

obvious  mold  for  the  making  of  the  new  father,  the 
new  mother,  the  new  family.  The  material  is  so 
plastic.  Yet  it  is  in  God's  power  so  to  soften  the 
hearts  of  the  mature  that  established  marriages 
take  new  forms;  marriage  is,  as  it  were,  born  again — 
often  by  the  travailing  prayers  of  a  Christian  wife. 
The  heart  of  the  wife  made  new  is  continually  "hung 
up"  on  her  husband's  account.  She  is  informed  by  a 
persistent  spirit  of  protest.  She  cannot  let  her 
husband  alone.  She  knocks  at  his  soul's  door  in 
season  and  out  of  season.  She  prays  about  him  in 
public;  she  rises — six  of  her,  ten  of  her — in  the  big 
gatherings  of  Christian  women  to  beg  for  him  their 
common  prayers.  She  prays  for  him  in  private  with 
all  a  woman's  lack  of  discretion.  I  heard  a  woman  of 
God  say  to  her  daughter-in-law: 

"When  you  pray  for  my  son  that  God  will  turn 
his  heart,  get  down  upon  your  knees  beside  the  bed 
where  he  lies  and  pray  aloud,  speaking  to  God  of 
my  son  by  name.  For  he  will  be  greatly  troubled 
in  his  spirit  when  he  hears  you  speak  of  him  to  God 
by  name;  he  will  not  be  able  to  withstand  that." 

Nor  was  he.  There  was  shortly  a  new  husband 


190  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

for  that  new  wife — a  new  father  for  the  children  of 
that  Christian  woman. 

The  uneven  This    Christian    family    is    surely    a 

y<*^®'  favorable  condition  for  the  demon- 

stration of  the  new  custom  of  the  tribe  of  God. 
Happy  those  men  who  find  themselves  so  placed, 
and  those  women!  Upon  such  the  eyes  of  the  less 
fortunate  dwell  with  envy.  Yes,  hard-pressed  women 
who  fight  their  holy  war  without  human  aid  have 
told  me  of  that  envy, 

"I  cannot  see  Malinga  with  her  husband  in  church 
and  her  children  but  I  break  the  tenth  tying!  I 
covet  her  good  seat  (her  good  position)  that  she  has 
a  Christian  husband  to  help  her  walk  straight,  to 
help  her  teach  her  children. 

"WTien  I  see  little  girls  whose  fathers  are  people 
of  God  I  feel  pain  in  my  heart  for  my  child  whose 
father  is  a  person  of  this  world.  Already  he  re- 
ceives dowry  for  my  httle  girl  who  is  no  bigger  than 
your  wrist." 

So  they  complain,  these  new  women  who  do  not 
have  the  moral  support  of  the  Christian  family; 
these  new  mothers  who  must  bear  alone  their 
parental  burdens. 

The  man  whose  wife  has  not  followed  him  into  the 
tribe  has  his  trials,  his  shame,  and  his  temptations; 
but  he  can  force  the  custom  of  his  household  to  con- 
form more  nearly  to  the  custom  of  the  tribe.  The 
Christian  woman  must  triumph  by  grace. 

I  love  to  think  how  she  triumphs  as  a  wife!  If 
a  headman  have  a  hundred  wives  with  their  hundred 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  191 

hearts,  he  will  yet  agree  that  those  among  them  who 
are  Christians  are  the  better  wives.  And  this  even 
when  he  has  beaten  the  meekest  of  them  for  announc- 
ing her  intention  to  attend  the  communion  service, 
whether  he  will  or  no.  Yes,  they  triumph  as  wives. 
Their  heathen  husbands  praise  their  virtues  in  the 
palaver  houses.  They  have  new  customs  of  honesty, 
purity,  diligence.  They  strive  to  hold  their  tongues. 
They  are  the  best  monitors  over  wild  young  brides. 
They  do  not  run  away  except  when  hunger  for  the 
Word  of  God  drives  them  to  make  a  journey  to  some 
gathering  of  the  people  of  the  tribe  of  God;  and  from 
these  journeys  they  return  without  scandal.  More 
headmen  than  Wanji  have  said  of  a  Christian  wife, 
"The  doing  that  she  does  makes  me  marvel  at  the 
power  of  God." 

They  triumph,  too,  as  mothers.  How  at  every 
communion  season  they  come,  these  Christian 
mothers,  with  their  babies  in  slings  of  deerskin  at 
their  sides !  With  what  happy  solemnity  they  present 
these  little  ones  for  baptism!  How  they  have 
stripped  their  babies  of  amulets  and  all  evil  that 
would  hinder,  how  they  do,  indeed,  "suffer"  that 
the  little  ones  come  unto  Him!  With  what  new 
thoughts  and  new  customs  these  children  are  urged 
by  maternal  hands  into  the  tribe  of  God! 
The  new  There  is  a  phase  of  the  moon  which 

children.  jg  gpoken  of  by  the  Bulu  as   "the 

deceiver  of  children."  It  is  the  third  quarter  of  the 
moon,  whose  rising  is  delayed  beyond  the  first  hour 
of  the  early  dark.  It  is  so  called,  their  fathers  tell 


192  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

me,  laughing,  because  the  children  have  gone  to  sleep 
before  the  moon  rises.  They  who  love  the  moonlight 
have  been  deceived  by  its  slow  appearing.  The  bright- 
ness of  the  rising  of  Christ  upon  the  African's  dark- 
ness, how  the  children  are  wakened  by  their  parents 
to  rejoice  in  it!  Here  is  no  "deceiver  of  children." 
Here,  presented  by  the  new  father  and  the  new 
mother,  is  the  new  child.  Little  Atongon,  the  new 
mother,  sang  her  thanksgiving  beside  a  new  child. 
In  the  tribe  of  God  there  is  a  new  childhood.  New 
thoughts  of  gain,  of  sex,  and  of  fetish, — these  have 
built  a  new  custom  about  the  child. 

Let  Donald  Fraser  tell  you,  in  his  Winning  a  Prim- 
itive People,  of  the  old  shameful  customs  which  must 
be  displaced  by  the  new  custom  of  the  tribe  of  God. 
Especially  in  the  abolishment  from  the  Christian 
family  of  the  things  of  shame  is  the  child  a  new  child. 

I  was  once  asked  by  a  fellow  missionary  to  hear  the 
confessions  of  eighty  little  girls.  They  had  come  to 
him,  who  was  our  minister,  in  a  body.  They  wished 
to  be  "people  of  the  tribe."  I  applied  myself  for  a 
week  to  these  eighty  interviews,  uncovering  the 
secret  sins  of  those  little  lives.  A  number  of  these 
children  had  Christian  mothers  and  when  this  was 
the  case  I  received  a  certain  type  of  answer: 

"These  things  are  not  done  in  the  house  of  my 
mother." 

"I  am  able  to  say  that  mother  is  a  person  of  God, 
and  has  forbidden  these  things." 

"Although  the  girls  of  our  town  do  these  things 
my  mother  has  tied  me  not  to  do  them." 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  198 

"My  father  and  mother  are  Christians;  they  tell 
me  daily  that  they  would  feel  a  peculiar  shame  if  I 
were  to  follow  the  old  custom  of  the  Bulu  in  this 
matter." 

More  I  could  say,  but  have  not  space,  of  the  em- 
phasis laid  by  the  children  of  Christian  parents  upon 
the  ennobled  custom  of  their  family. 
The  new  This  new  child,  who  is  set  in  a  new 

schooling.  home,  is  sent  to  a  new  school.  The 

dark  initiations  into  secret  societies  which  were 
the  old  custom  of  care  for  the  boy,  the  old  things  of 
shame  which  were  training  for  the  girl, — these  are 
displaced  in  the  custom  of  the  tribe  by  the  Christian 
school.  The  hundreds  of  village  schools  which  you 
will  never  find  on  the  map  of  Africa  and  the 
great  central  schools  whose  names  are  not  unknown 
— these  are  the  mints  where  the  gold  of  the  new 
childhood  is  coined  and  stamped  with  an  image  and 
superscription  which  will  make  it  current  in  the 
hands  of  the  Head  of  the  tribe.  On  the  forehead  of 
the  little  daughter  of  the  heathen  there  is  tattooed 
a  tribal  mark;  on  the  nape  of  the  little  boy's  neck 
there  are  two  little  scars,  the  stamp  of  his  initiation 
into  the  evil  wisdom  of  a  secret  society.  But  the 
young  of  the  tribe  of  God  are  stamped  for  service. 
The  new  child  will  have  for  diploma  when  his  school 
day  is  done  a  position  of  responsibihty  in  a  Christian 
neighborhood. 

The  new  There  is  a  new  neighborhood.  There 

neighborhood.  jg^  wherever  the  Word  has  become 
Ufe,  a  community  to  be  served.  The  old  community 


194  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

has  been  a  community  to  be  exploited,  the  new 
community  is  a  neighborhood  to  be  served.  Ibia 
says  at  the  close  of  one  of  his  rebukes  against  the 
exploiting  of  the  community: 

"It  is  of  the  'visit  of  begging'  and  the  'begging 
friend'  that  we  do  speak,  because  visitation  and 
friend  will  not  cease  in  the  world." 

Again  he  says:  "Slothfulness  and  prideness  does 
kill  you.  Get  out  slothfulness  and  prideness  from 
yourself.  Prideness  makes  the  people  to  refuse 
serving  lest  they  be  said  that  they  are  not  great  men. 
Where  shall  you  find  power  if  you  do  not  serve  each 
other?  From  stealing  and  begging.?  Don't  look 
disdainfully  at  the  men  who  do  work  and  them  that 
serve  you.  They  do  save  the  people  on  the  earth. 
They  that  doesn't  do  are  unqualified  in  the  world." 

I  give  you  this  comment  exactly  as  it  appears  in 

Myongo's  translation.  It  is  the  signpost  at  the  fork 

of  the  road;  here  is  the  worn  path  to  the  community 

to  be  exploited,  and  here  is  a  new  path,  a  new  little 

breach  in  the  forest  still  full  of  the  d6bris  of  its 

clearing,  and  this  little  pioneer  path  is  the  way  to  the 

neighborhood  to  be  served.  The  caravans  of  the 

tribe  of  God  go  up  this  path,  and  with  them  they 

carry  the  new  things  of  service.  Thus  laden,  there 

comes  into  the  old  clearings  by  this  new  path — the 

neighbor. 

In  the  pack  of  the  neighbor,  a  heavy 

The  neighbor.  ,        ,     4.  ^  i?!,-  j 

pack,  what  treasure  01  thmgs  new  and 

old !  Old  things  renewed  by  Christ,  dim  old  treasures 

of  instinct  rubbed  up  on  the  sleeve  of  His  seamless 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  195 

coat  and  put  into  the  neighbor's  pack  for  the  use 
of  the  community. 

There  is  the  patriarchal  instinct  of  the  Bulu  put 
to  its  Christian  use,  lest  the  tribe  of  God  lack  for 
fathers  and  judges.  There  is  the  maternal  instinct 
enriched  and  released  for  the  neighborhood.  The 
old  Bulu  communal  life  has  cut  a  groove  for  these. 
The  Bulu  has  more  fathers  and  mothers  than  the 
white  man.  "She  is  my  mother,  because  of  the  many 
kindnesses;  he  is  my  father  because  he  is  my  father's 
kin" — of  how  many  old  men  and  women  a  young 
Bulu  will  give  this  account.  "I  see  her  as  a  child  of 
my  own,  because  her  mother  was  just  a  little  bride 
in  my  house  when  she  was  born."  So  will  a  childless 
woman  say,  among  the  Bulu,  of  another's  child, 
until  now  the  neighbor  will  be  saying  of  the  child  of 
another  who  has  died,  or  who  has  deserted,  "God 
sent  me  this  child." 

"Is  this,  indeed,  the  child  of  your  body.?"  I  asked 
a  friend  of  mine  from  whom  I  had  been  separated, 
and  in  whose  hut,  now  that  I  had  returned,  I  found 
a  child. 

"You  white  women  are  always  speaking  of  the 
things  of  the  body!  No — this  child  is  not  a  child  of 
my  body,  she  is  a  child  of  my  heart!  God  did  not 
give  me  a  child  until  the  day  this  little  girl's  mother 
ran  away  with  a  young  man  who  stole  her.  That 
day  I  said,  'This,  now,  is  my  child  that  God  has 
given  me.  Every  day  while  she  is  little  I  shall  tell 
her  the  Word  of  God,  and  before  her  eyes — though 
they  are  the  eyes  of  a  child — I  shall  do  the  things  of 


196  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

God;  and  the  day  she  is  as  big  as  need  be,  she  must 
go  to  school;  and  when  she  opens  her  eyes  (to  the 
things  of  marriage)  she  herself  shall  choose  the 
man  !*  Her  father  agrees !" 

So  said  the  neighbor-mother  who  was  Ze,  the  wife 
of  Wanji,  taking  the  bright  tool  of  her  sharpened 
motherhood  out  of  the  pack  of  service.  With  such  a 
tool  as  this  old  Nyunga  works,  to  whom  God  has 
given  scores  of  girls  to  mother  in  a  school  I  know. 
Over  that  wild  company  with  its  laughing  and  its 
sulking,  its  boisterous  play  and  its  waves  of  dis- 
order broods  old  Nyunga,  the  children  of  whose  body 
are  all  grown  and  gone.  To  this  extreme — this 
almost  desperate  adventure  of  motherhood — Nyunga 
came  from  such  a  fireside  as  old  women  commonly 
frequent;  quiet  was  there,  and  a  little  soup  was  in 
the  clay  pot.  Now,  you  would  say,  the  grasshopper 
is  a  burden  to  old  Nyunga;  when  God  calls  her  to 
the  charge  of  a  community  of  girls,  a  whole  pest  of 
grasshoppers!  With  what  love,  what  patience,  what 
sleepless  Argus  eye  and  what  blind  mother  eye 
Nyunga  has  served  her  community — let  white 
women  and  black  women  relate! 

I  remember  a  day  speaking  to  a  headman  who  was  a 
Christian  and  who  was  suffering  under  the  discipline 
of  the  alphabet.  He  was,  he  told  me,  the  father  of 
his  village.  And  as  such,  and  for  the  sake  of  all  those 
people  whom  God  had  given  him,  he  must  learn  to 
read  the  Word.  No  one  knew  better  than  he  how 
unskilled  he  was  in  that  new  justice  which  it  was  his 
part  to  administer.  The  Word  of  God,  he  knew,  was 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  197 

the  text  of  the  new  code.  But  this  thing  of  reading, 
he  told  me,  looking  at  me  very  wistfully  from  behind 
his  mature,  tattooed  mask,  was  of  all  things,  hardest ! 

"You  are  that  cutlass,"  I  told  him,  "that  was 
bought  of  a  trader,  but  it  was  not  sharp.  So  the 
Man  who  bought  you  and  who  has  work  waiting 
His  tool,  is  sharpening  you  on  the  stone  that  is 
school!" 

"I  give  you  great  thanks,"  said  the  neighbor  who 
was  indeed  so  much,  to  my  knowledge,  the  tool  in 
God's  hands. 

"Brother,  I  greet  you!"  says  the  neighbor,  to  no 
matter  whom.  This  is  the  hand  the  neighbor  puts 
upon  a  stranger's  shoulder.  Be  sure  that  the  stranger 
starts.  Do  not  forget,  that  the  neighbor,  before  he 
was  a  neighbor,  was  to  every  alien  an  enemy. 
Before  the  people  of  God  began  to  spring  up  in  the 
forest  there  was  no  intertribal  talk  of  "brother," 
unless  between  allied  tribes.  I  once  heard  long  talk 
of  this  matter  on  a  forest  journey.  I  had  four 
hammock  carriers,  each  of  a  different  tribe. 

"This  walking  that  we  walk  today,"  they  told 
each  other  on  that  journey,  "is  a  strange  walking 
for  black  people  to  walk!  Four  men  of  four  tribes 
walking  in  one  company  and  doing  one  work!  God 
alone  could  unite  us  after  this  fashion,"  and  to  the 
white  woman  they  said,  "Before  the  time  of  the 
things  of  God,  not  one  of  us  but  would  have  feared 
to  meet  the  other.  Ah,  brothers,  is  it  not  a  true 
word?" 

"He  tells  the  truth!" 


198  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

"And  now,  we  eat  together  and  we  sleep  together 
like  people  of  one  village!" 

The  new  There  is  at  the  hands  of  this  neighbor 

hospitaJity.  ^  new  hospitality.  "Before  the  white 

man  came  we  knew  friendship  and  the  things  of 
hospitality,"  said  Min  Koe  Ntem — and  that  is  true, 
as  the  white  stranger  in  the  land  must  always 
acknowledge.  But  another  woman  said  to  me: 

"I  marvel  at  the  new  things  of  hospitality !  Always 
we  have  excelled  in  hospitality  toward  men  who 
were  our  husbands'  honored  guests,  and  to  our  own 
kin,  but  now  there  begin  to  be  new  things  of  hospi- 
tality,— we  cook  our  best  food  even  for  women  and 
for  those  who  are  the  less  'real'  people." 

I  know  a  little  neighbor  who  never  slept  in  her 
own  bed,  but  upon  the  clay  floor,  when  in  the  days 
before  and  after  the  communion  Sunday  the  hospi- 
tality of  the  neighborhood  was  taxed  to  the  limits 
Do  not  think  lightly  of  the  new  things  of  hospitality 
among  a  people  whose  custom  of  polygamy  is  re- 
placed by  monogamy.  There  is  now  only  one  wife 
with  two  hands  for  the  old  tasks  that  v/ere  so  easily 
turned  off  by  the  many  wives. 

The  new  There  are  new  things  of  consolation, 

consolation.  <'jj^  such  a  town  one  may  be  merry 

without  fear!"  Yes,  and  in  such  a  town  one  may 
be  sad  without  fear.  How  little  the  white  man  knows 
of  the  reality  of  this  emancipation.  To  mourn  with- 
out fear  the  dead!  To  escape  the  accusation  of 
witchcraft  when  your  child  has  died !  To  sit  in  your 
house  feeling  a  grief,  knowing  that  in  the  palaver- 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  19!* 

house  the  father  of  your  child  feels  a  grief  that  is  a 
friend  to  your  grief.  Or,  if  you  must  bear  the  con- 
tradictions of  sinners,  to  see — in  your  lonely  hour  of 
sorrovf — the  neighbor  come  up  the  street.  To  feel 
the  kind  dew  of  a  new  consolation  fall  upon  you! 
This  mercy  of  consolation  is  all  new.  Never  the 
Bulu  spake  like  this  until  the  Lord  spake  in  them. 
Those  Christian  women  whose  silence  is  louder  than 
the  wailing  of  the  mourners — who,  when  they  are 
permitted  to  speak,  speak  comfort  to  that  distracted 
being  in  the  ashes;  who  know  how,  for  God  has 
taught  them,  to  draw  into  the  brown  dusk  of  that 
poor  hut  the  radiance  of  man's  immortal  hope, — 
these  are  the  neighbor,  mending  with  a  new  skill 
the  old  mortal  break  in  the  human  heart. 
The  neighbor  The  neighbor  must  endure  long 
evangelist.  journeys  and  exile.  God  has  set  the 

world  in  his  heart.  He  has  errands  far  from  home. 
Yes,  as  far  from  home  as  a  day's  journey.  He  must 
take  the  Bread  of  Life  to  the  aliens  who  perish  a 
day's  journey  away  and  across  a  river,  and  two 
days'  journey,  and  a  week's  journey,  and  presently 
there  is  for  the  neighbor  a  moon  of  journeying  and  a 
lonely  season  in  a  "cold"  town.  In  such  adventures 
as  these  the  neighbor  suffers  hunger  and  scorn — 
the  laughing  scorn  of  the  African,  which  the  African 
bears  so  ill.  But  the  neighbor  bears  it.  Still  in  his 
hunger  and  his  embarrassment  he  blows  upon  the 
ember  which  he  has  brought  on  his  long  journeys 
to  this  town  of  darkness.  He  is  "the-man-who- 
brings-the-ember."  Yes,  he  is  that.  Poor  man  of 


800  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

many  failures,  many  dark  shadows  on  his  past, 
many  evil  currents  in  his  blood,  he  is  yet  "the-man- 
vrho-brings-the-ember" — a  kind  of  humble  and 
accredited  Prometheus. 

He  and  his  ember!  Cannot  you  trace  him  by  that 
little  light,  busy  upon  the  map  of  the  African  dark- 
ness? Your  statistics  that  run  into  the  thousands — 
into  the  hundreds  of  thousands — what  are  they  but 
the  sum  of  the  neighbors,  each  with  his  ember,  his 
coal  off  the  altar!  How  upon  the  African  map  they 
outline  the  African  church! 

They  are  like  that  Bulu  father  who  must  show 
to  his  son  the  "things  of  Tolo."  Tolo  is  the  constella- 
tion of  the  Hare.  Near  the  mighty  Orion  it  shines, 
the  chosen  constellation  of  the  Bulu.  It  is  his 
treasure  out  of  the  golden  store.  For  him  Tolo  naarks 
the  year.  Those  five  stars  are  to  him  a  bright  head, 
and  hands  and  feet.  When,  in  the  first  dark,  Tolo 
stands  above  the  roofs  of  the  houses,  then  is  the 
time  for  the  sons  of  men  to  be  felling  the  trees  of  the 
forest,  that  they  may  burn  the  debris  of  the  new 
clearing,  and  that  the  women  may  plant  in  these 
before  the  season  of  rain.  All  the  "real  men"  of  the 
Bulu  watch  the  bright  body  of  Tolo  walk  upon  the 
upper  paths;  and  to  every  lad  of  the  Bulu,  so  the 
Bulu  have  told  us,  there  comes  a  night  of  initiation, 
when  his  father  shows  him  the  sky.  Then,  because 
the  lad  is  slow  to  find  the  body  of  Tolo  in  all  those 
swarming  stars,  his  father  takes  five  coals  from  the 
palaver-house  fire,  and  on  the  village  street  he 
spreads  them  out  in  the  bright  design.  Then,  on 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  «01 

the  floor  of  the  clearing  between  the  walls  of  the 
rifted  forest  there  appears — for  the  uplifting  of  a 
little  boy — an  incarnation  of  Tolo,  the  mighty  and 
the  glittering  one,  the  counsellor.  Hunting  among 
the  inaccessible  stars  he  sees  the  bright  head,  the 
hands,  the  feet — ancient  and  lovely.  He  discerns 
them,  because  in  the  dust  of  the  village  street  there 
has  been  drawn  out  for  him  their  express  image, 
in  the  trembling  rose  of  mortal  embers. 

Yes,  the  church  of  Christ  in  Africa  is  thus  out- 
lined upon  the  dust  of  the  village  streets.  Trembling 
old  hands  and  the  quick  hands  of  the  young  spread 
out  in  the  village  commons  the  embers  of  obedience 
to  God,  of  love  to  God,  of  service  to  their  neighbors. 
These  new  things  of  humility,  of  chastity,  of  truth, 
of  justice  and  of  mercy — what  are  these  but  the 
express  image,  upon  the  floor  of  the  African  clearing 
in  the  dark  of  the  African  night  of  that  One  who  is 
the  Son  of  God  and  the  Son  of  Man?  Be  sure  that 
upon  this  outline  among  them  the  dark  tribes 
ponder.  Be  sure  that,  pointed  by  the  neighbor, 
they  raise  their  faces  to  the  skies.  And  there,  in  the 
heart  of  the  old  confusions  of  their  universe,  they 
behold  the  shining  of  the  Wonderful,  Counsellor, 
the  Saviour,  the  Prince  of  Peace.  There  He  stands 
above  the  roofs  of  their  houses,  proclaiming  the 
season  of  clearing  and  burning  and  planting;  sum- 
moning the  "real  men"  and  the  "real  women"  of 
Africa  to  the  work  of  a  mighty  harvest. 

"I  know  thy  works,"  saith  He  that  holdeth  the 
seven  stars  in  His  right  hand,  who  walketh  in  the 


fl02  AN  AJUICAN  TRAIL 

midst  of  the  seven  golden  candlesticks;  "I  know  thy 
works  and  where  thou  dv/ellest,  exen  where  Satan's 
seat  is."  And  again  He  says,  "To  him  that  over- 
cometh  will  I  give  to  eat  of  the  hidden  manna,  and 
will  give  him  a  white  stone  and  in  the  stone  a  new 
name  written,  which  no  man  knoweth  saving  him 
that  receiveth  it." 

"I  know,"  saith  He  that  holdeth  the  stars  and 
walketh  among  the  candlesticks — "I  know  the 
statistics  of  the  African  church." 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  808 

KHAMA,  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHIEF 
OF  THE  3ECHUANA 

From  the  very  outset  the  young  chief  declared  his  intention  of 
ruling  his  people  according  to  Christian  principles,  and  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  any  native  potentate  in  South  Africa  has  en- 
deavoured as  faithfully  to  carry  out  his  original  intention,  or  has 
succeeded  so  signally.  In  spite  of  the  opposition  of  the  old  heathen 
element,  he  was  successful  in  gradually  putting  down  objection- 
able customs,  such  as  witchcraft,  circumcision,  wife  purchase 
(bogado)  and  slavery;  in  stopping  the  introduction  of  brandy 
into  his  territories;  and  in  building  up  a  stable  kingdom  upon  the 
ruins  of  the  old  lawless  and  disordered  state.  He  was  likewise 
successful  in  preventing,  through  strong  representation  and  a 
personal  visit  to  England,  the  absorption  of  his  territory  by  the 
chartered  company. 

Kliama  remains  today  the  most  eminent  example  in  South 
Africa  of  a  Christianized  native  chief. 

— J.  du  Plessis,  A  History  of  Christian  Missiotis  in  South 
Africa,  p.  278,  Longman's  &  Co.,  1911. 
KINDNESS  AMONG  CHRISTIANS 

One  knows  of  cases  where  lads  have  carried  to  hospitals  sick 
persons  who  have  been  abandoned,  that  they  might  be  cared  for. 
One  of  the  most  popular  funds  of  the  native  church  is  that  for 
the  care  of  the  widow  and  helpless.  To  this  money  is  given  cheer- 
fully and  many  a  miserable  old  slave  woman  has  had  her  latter 
days  brightened  by  the  care  of  the  Church.  I  came  into  a  little 
village  recently  and  found  none  of  the  Christians  there.  After 
pitching  my  tent,  I  waited  till  the  evening  for  their  appearing, 
and  then  they  came  with  their  evangelist  at  their  head.  They  had 
spent  the  whole  day  hoeing  the  garden  of  an  infirm  old  widow 
who  could  not  keep  herself.  And  one  knows  many  cases  like  this, 
and  has  seen  the  strong  young  Christians,  when  a  new  village 
was  being  built,  setting  apart  some  days  to  build  a  house  for 
some  sick  or  widowed  Christian,  who  had  no  other  claim  upon 
them  than  that  she  could  do  nothing  for  herself. 

— Donald  Fraser,  Winning  a  Primitive  People,  p.  99,  E.  P. 
Dutton  &  Co.,  1914. 


«04  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

THE  AFRICAN  AND  CHANGE 

There  have  bean  more  changes  id  the  South  African  tribes 
during  the  last  fifty  years  than  during  the  fifty  or  five  hundred 
preceding  centuries,  and  tliis  process  of  transformation  is  bound 
to  continue  at  a  geometrical  rate  of  progression,  during  the  fifty 
ensuing  years.  Taking  into  consideration  for  a  moment  the  real 
and  permanent  interest  of  the  Native,  let  us  ask  to  what  probable 
goal  this  transformation  is  leading  him.  I  leave  on  one  side,  for 
the  present,  the  influence  of  Missionary  enterprise. 

Ci%Tlization  has  certainly  brought  some  blessings  to  the  tribe 
and  I  have  impartially  and  carefully  noted  them.  Disappearance 
of  deadly  famines,  owing  to  the  development  of  trade;  better 
clothing  (this  is  a  mixed  blessing);  better  seeds  and  agricultural 
implements  (plough);  possibility  of  earning  money;  incentive  to 
work  in  order  to  pay  taxes  (this  Natives  would  certainly  not  call 
r  blessing  I)  ;decrease  of  polygamy;  broadening  of  ideas,  consequent 
.  a  travelers  and  work  in  towns.  But  the  curses  of  civilization 
far  exceed  its  blessings  for  the  South  African  Native:  he  has  lost 
more  through  it  than  he  has  gained.  Loss  of  poUtical  interest  and 
responsibility,  loss  of  hierarchic  respect  for  the  chiefs  and  for  the 
elder  brother;  loss  of  personal  dignity;  moreover,  we  notice 
decrease  of  religious  faith  and  of  respect  for  taboos. 

In  addition,  the  vices  of  civilization  have  found  a  deplorable 
welcome  on  the  part  of  these  primitives,  and  these  vices  have 
caused  new  and  very  dangerous  diseases  w^hich  are  now  quickly 
spreading  amongst  them:  Alchoholic  cachoxy,  sj^philis,  a  great 
increase  of  consumption,  due  to  the  work  in  towns,  without 
speaking  of  the  criminal  instincts  which  have  developed  under 
these  influences — miu"der  and  rape  (hence  the  Black  peril,  which 
was  unknown  in  the  primitive  state).  The  tribe  has  lost  its  orien- 
tation and  moral  and  physical  results  have  quickly  followed. 

To  fight  against  these  new  and  frightful  foes  the  Black  race 
happily  possesses  a  considerable  physical  strength,  and  great 
prolificacy,  but  these  may  not  necessarily  last  forever.  They  can 
be  lost.  ...  I  cannot  conceal  the  fact  that  I  consider  the  situa- 
tion of  the  South  African  tribe,  under  present  circumstances,  a 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  205 

very  serious  one.  If  these  influences  are  not  checked  I  believe 
in  the  possible  extinction  of  the  race,  in  the  long  run,  and  I  think 
every  thoughtful  observer  will  come  to  the  same  conclusion. 
Ought  not  certain  steps  to  be  taken  by  the  government  in  order  to 
stop  the  progress  of  the  evil?  Would  not,  for  instance,  a  policy  of 
segregation  be  commendable?  Or,  would  it  not  be  in  the  interests 
of  the  Natives  to  remove  them  to  tropical  Africa,  leaving  the 
white  man  alone  in  South  Africa?  These  questions  have  been 
discussed  at  length  in  South  African  papers,  and  I  have  nothing 
to  say  about  them  except  that  such  steps  seem  to  be  absolutely 
impracticable.  I  am  con%dnced  that  the  only  remedy  for  these 
deadly  dangers  is  the  formation,  in  the  Black  tribe,  of  a  strong 
moral  character  accompanied  by  suflScient  enlightenment  of 
mind  to  enable  the  Native,  himself,  to  perceive  the  danger  and 
overcome  it. 

I  am  con\'inced  that  Christianity  is  the  only  true  solution  of  the 
problem.  Christianity,  not  merely  a  new  set  of  rites  taking  the 
place  of  the  old  animistic  rites,  but  the  spiritual  Christianity — 
which  perfectly  combines  the  religious  belief  and  the  moral  duty — 
accepted  by  the  Bantu  soul — and  leading  the  weak  and  carnal 
Bantu  savage  to  the  height  of  the  Christian  ideal,  thus  victoriously 
replacing  the  non-moral  religion  and  the  non-religious  morality 
of  the  Native. 

Christianity,  the  religion  of  sanctity,  affording  the  only  real 
satisfaction  to  the  aspiration  for  purity  so  conspicuous  in  the 
Bantu  rites.  Science  will  soon  dispel  all  the  superstitious  dread 
of  the  taboos. 

Let  those  imaginary  fears  be  replaced  by  the  fear  of  moral 
wrong — sin  becoming  for  the  Christianized  Native  the  real,  the 
true  taboo — and  a  healthy  life  will  then  be  possible. 

Christianity,  the  religion  of  conversion,  regeneration,  super- 
natin*al  transformation,  bringing  within  the  reach  of  the  Native 
a  power  from  above  to  deUver  him  and  save  him.  Magical  notions 
are  doomed  to  die  before  long  in  the  light  of  Science.  .  .  .  But 
the  faith  in  an  all-powerfid  Father  will  free  the  savage  from  the 
fear  of  spirits  and  open  his  heart  to  the  holy  influences  of  the 
Religion  of  Christ. 


ms  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

Clirlstianily,  the  religion  of  love,  love  between  individuals, 
and  love  between  the  races,  regulating  the  relations  between 
Whites  and  Blacks,  who  are  both  indispensable  to  the  cultivation, 
exploitixtion,  and  full  utilization  of  the  marvelous  riches  of  South 
Africa,  dispelling  race  hatred,  and  promoting  the  helpful  collabo- 
ration of  /liricanders  and  Africans. 

But  is  the  Bantu  capable  of  accepting  such  a  high  and  spiritual 
religion?  I  answer:  "Yes!  Their  intelligence  can  understand  the 
Gospel  of  'the  Father  WTio  is  in  Heaven,'  as  they  already  possess 
the  rudiments  of  this  central  teaching  of  Christianity  in  the 
beliefs  of  Ancestrolatry,  and  in  their  conceptions  of  Heaven. 
That  their  heart  is  able  to  grasp  it  by  faith — the  only  con- 
dition of  entrance  into  the  Kingdom  of  God — is  proved  by  a 
thousand  instances." 

— Henri  A.  Junod,  The  Life  of  a  South  African  Tribe,  p.  340, 
Imprimerie  Attinger  Freres,  Neuchatel,  Switzerland,  181S. 


THE  NEW  CUSTOM  207 

QUESTIONS  FOR  CHAPTER  VI. 

1.  What  are  some  of  the  secular  agencies  that  have  modified 
the  primitive  circumstance  of  the  people  of  your  African  field? 

2.  What  are  some  of  the  benefits  of  these  secular  influences 
for  change? 

3.  What  are  some  of  the  regrettable  features? 

4.  What  is  your  mission  striving  to  do  to  prepare  the  natives 
to  prosper  in  these  new  conditions? 

5.  Are  there  any  Christian  headmen  in  your  neighborhood? 

6.  What  is  the  effect  upon  village  life  of  the  conversion  of  a 
headman? 

7.  WTiat  is  the  effect  upon  domestic  hfe  in  your  neighbor- 
hood of  the  conversion  of  the  husband? 

8.  Of  the  wife? 

9.  Of  the  parents? 

10.  What  is  the  effect   upon   dsmestic  life  ef  the   Christian 
education  for  girls? 

11.  What  is  the  effect  upon  child  life  in  your  missisn  wf  the 
Christian  home? 

12.  The  Christian  school? 

13.  What  is  the  effect  in  your  neighborhood  of  the  Christian 
theory  of  medicine? 

14.  What  have  your  missionaries  to  say   of   the  growth    of 
the  Christian  as  a  neighbor  in  your  field? 

15.  What  are  some  of  the  functions  of  the  Christian  of  your 
neighborhood  in  operation  for  the  common  good? 


A  BRIEF  READING  LIST 

The  books  included  in  the  following  bibliography  are  but  a  few 
of  those  that  may  be  read  with  profit,  but  they  present  a  rather 
formidable  list  to  the  average  busy  woman.  I  have  made,  there- 
fore, a  little  selection  of  the  more  indispensable  books,  and  have 
supplemented  it  with  the  names  of  other  valuable  books  which 
may  be  read  by  those  who  have  time  and  opportunity. 

Of  books  touching  upon  Africa  in  general  the  following  are 

suggested: 

The  Opening  up  of  Africa,  Sir  H.  H.  Johnston  (Henry  Holt, 
New  York)  $0.75. 

One  of  the  following: 

The  Future  of  Africa,  Donald  Fraser  (Chiu-ch  Missionary 
Society,  London,  1911)  $0.75. 

Christus  Liberator,  Ellen  C.  Parsons  (Central  Committee  on 
the  United  Study  of  Foreign  Missions,  West  Medford,  Mass., 
1905)  $0.50. 

Daybreak  in  the  Dark  Continent,  W.  S.  Naylor  (Young  People's 
Missionary  Movement,  New  York,  1904)  $0.50. 

Suggested  further  reading  where  time  affords  and  a  library  is 
available: 

Dawn  in  the  Dark  Continent,  James  Stewart  (Oliphant,  Ander- 
son &  Ferrier,  London,  1903)  Qs.  net. 

History  of  Christian  Missions  in  South  Africa,  J.  du  Plessis 
(Longmans,  Green  &  Co.,  New  York,  1911)  $3.50. 

Daybreak  in  Livingstonia,  James  W.  Jack  (Fleming  H.  Revell 
Co.,  New  York,  1900)  $1.50. 

Natives  of  British  Central  Africa,  A.  Werner  (A.  Constable  & 
Co.,  London,  1907)  6s.  net. 

Thinking  Black,  Dan  Crawford  (Doran,  New  York,  1913)  $2.00. 


210  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

Snap  Shots  from  Sunny  Africa,  Helen  E.  Springer  (Fleming  H. 
Revell  Co.,  New  York,  1909)  $1.00. 

Pioneering  in  Central  Africa,  Samuel  P.  Werner  (Presbyterian 
Committee  of  Publication,  Richmond,  Va.,  1903)  $2.00. 

Pioneering  in  the  Congo,  John  M.  Springer  (Methodbt  Book 
Concern,  New  York,  1916)  $1.00. 

The  chapter  on  Africa  in  The  History  of  Christian  Missions, 
Chas.  H.  Robinson  (Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  New  York,  1915) 
$2.50. 

Any  of  thr  books  by  Sir  H.  H.  Johnston. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Suggested  reading: 

The  Lives  of  Robert  and  Mary  Moffat,  John  S.  Moffat  (A.   C. 
Armstrong  &  Son,  New  York,  1888)  $1.50. 

The  Personal  Life  of  David  Livingstone.  W.  G.  Blaikie  (Fleming 
H.  Revell  Co..  New  York)  $0.50. 

Further  suggested  reading; 

Alexander  Mackay  of  Uganda,  Mrs.  J.  W.  Harrison   (A.    C. 
Armstrong  &  Son,  New  York,  1899)  $1.50. 

On  the  Threshold  of  Central  Africa,  Francois  Coillard  (American 
Tract  Society,  New  Y'ork.  1903)  $2.50. 

A  Life  for  Africa  (biography  of  A.  C.  Good),  Ellen  C.  Parsons 
(Fleming  H.  Revell  Co.,  New  York,  1900,  2nd  Ed.)  $1.25. 

James  Hannington,  E.  C.  Dawson  (Anson,  Randolph  &  Co., 
York,  1887)  $2.00. 

Stefwart  of  Lovedale,  James  Wells,  D.D.  (Fleming  H.  Revell  Co., 
New  York.  1909.  2nd  Ed.)  $1-50. 


A  BRIEF  READING  LIST  211 

Mary  Slessor  of  Calabar,  W.  P.  Livingstone  (Hodder  &  Stough- 
ton.  New  York,  1915)  3s.  6i. 

On  the  Borders  of  Pigmy  Land,  Ruth  B.  Fisher  (Fleming  H. 
Revell  Co.,  New  York,  1905)  $1.25. 

How  I  Found  Livingstone,  Henry  Stanley  (Scribner,  New  York, 
1891)  $3.50. 

And  any  of  Livingstone's  Books.  There  are  three. 

I  would  note  that  Mary  Slessor's  field  was  north  of  Bantu 
Africa;  but  her  biography  is  so  rich  and  so  characteristic  that  I 
have  included  it  in  our  list. 

Leaflets: 

Africa  Factsfrom  Mission  Fields,  Flag  Series  (Women's  Foreign 
Missionary  Society,  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  581  Boyleston 
St.,  Boston,  Mass.)  $0.05. 

Isabella  H.  Nassau  of  Africa  (Women's  Board  of  Foreign 
Missions  of  Presbyterian  Church,  156  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York) 
$0.03;  $0.30  per  doz. 


CHAPTER  11. 

Suggested  reading: 

The  Article  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  on  Bantu  Lan- 
guages (11th  Edition). 

Among  the  Wild  Ngoni,  W.  A.  Elmslie  (Fleming  H.  Revell  Co., 
New  York,  1899)  $1.25. 

Among  Congo  Cannibals,  J.  H.  Weeks  (Lippincott,  1913)  $3.50. 
Further  suggestions: 

My  Life  in  Basvioland,  Eugene  CasalLs  (The  Religious  Tract 
Society,  56  Paternoster  Row,  London,  1889)  5s. 

The  Baganda,  Their  Customs  and  Beliefs,  John  Roscoe  (Mac- 
millan,  New  York,  1911)  $5.00. 


212  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

Savage  Man  in  Central  Africa,  A.  L.  Curean  (Fisher  Unwin, 
London.  1915)  12s.  6d. 

The  Essential  Kafir,  Dudley  Kidd  (A.  &  C.  Black,  London, 
1904)  18s. 

Particularly,  I  would  suggest  to  interested  students  who  have 
access  to  an  adequate  library  to  read  with  this  chapter,  vclume 
one  of: 

Life  of  a  Smdh  African  Tribe,  Henri  Junod  (Attinger  Freres, 
Neuchatel,  Switzerland,  2  vols.,  1912)  30s. 


Leaflets: 

The  Women  of  West  Central  Africa,  Bertha  D.  Stover  (Women's 
Congregational  Board,  Room  523,  40  Dearborn  St.,  Chicago, 
111.)  $0.02;  $0.20  per  doz. 

The  Umbunda  Baby  and  Its  Mother,  Elizabeth  R.  Eunis 
(Woman's  Board,  704  Congregational  House,  Boston,  Mass.) 
$0.02;  $0.20  per  doz. 

Home  Life  in  Africa  (Women's  Board  Foreign  Missionary 
Society  of  Presbyterian  Church,  501  Witherspoon  Building, 
Philadelphia,  Pa.)  $0.02;  $0.20  per  doz. 

Other  Children,  Jean  Kenyon  Mackenzie  (Women's  Board  of 
Foreign  Missions  of  Presbyterian  Church,  156  Fifth  Avenue, 
New  York)  $0.02;  $0.20  per  doz. 

Brass  Rods  and  Beads,  Mrs.  O.  W.  Scott  (Women's  Foreign 
Missionary  Society,  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  581  Boyleston 
St.,  Boston,  Mass.)  $0.02;  $0.20  per  doz. 

The  African  Drum,  A.  W.  Halsey,  D.D.  (Women's  Board  of 
Foreign  Missions  of  Presbyterian  Church,  156  Fifth  Avenue, 
New  York)  $0.02;  $0.15  per  doz. 


A  BRIEF  READING  LIST  815 

CHAPTER  in. 

Suggested  reading: 

Among  Congo  Cannibals,  J.  H.  Weeks  (Lippincott,  1913)  $3.50. 
Chapter  VlII  of  vol.  I  of 

Pioneering  on  the  Congo,  W.  H.  Bentley  (Fleming  H.  Revell  Co., 
New  York,  2  vols.,  1900)  $5.00. 

The  Jungle  Folk  of  Africa,  Robert  Milligan  (Fleming  H.  Revell 
Co.,  New  York,  1908)  $1.50. 

Further  suggestions : 

The  Baganda,  John  Roscoe  (Maemillan,  1911)  $5.00. 

Life  of  a  South  African  Tribe,  vol.  II,  Henri  Junod.  (See  note 
on  this  book  under  bibliography  Chap.  II.) 

Fetishism  in  West  Africa,  R.  H.  Nassau  (Scribners,  1904)  $2.50. 

Leaflets: 

The  Pentecost  on  the  Congo,  Rev.  Henry  Richards  (American 
Baptist  Foreign  Missionary  Society,  Ford  Building,  Boston, 
Mass.)  $0.05. 

Umzumbe  Revisited,  Mrs.  Amy  B.  Cowles  (Woman's  Board, 
704  Congregational  House,  Boston,  Mass.)  $0.04;  $0.40  per  doz. 

Wonder  Stories,  Mrs.  Charles  W.  Egan  (Woman's  Board  of 
Foreign  Missions  of  Presbyterian  Church,  156  Fifth  Avenue, 
New  York)  $0.03;  $0.30  per  doz. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Suggested  reading: 

Chapter  XXXI  of 

Among  Congo  Cannibals,  J.  H.  Weeks  (Lippincott,  1913)  $3.50. 

God's  Ways  vnth  the  Bantu  Soul,  Henri  Junod  {International 
Missionary  Review,  Jan.,  1914). 


214  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

FetUkism  in  West  Africa,  R.  H.  Nassau  (Scribners,  1904)  $2.50. 
Leaflets: 

Opals  from  Africa,  A.  F.  Hansey  (Foreign  Christian  Missionary 
Society,  Cincinnati,  Ohio)  $0.10. 

The  Blind  Zulu's  Story,  Gertrude  Hance   (Woman's  Board, 
704  Congregational  House,  Boston,  Mass.)  $0.02;  $0.20  per  doz. 

A  Story  in  Pictures  (Methodist  Episcopal  Board,  150  Fifth 
Avenue,  New  York)  $0.05. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Suggested  reading: 

Pioneering  in  the  Congo,  John  M.  Springer  (Methodist  Book 
Concern,  New  York,  1916)  $1.00. 

Winning  a  Primitive  People,  Donald  Eraser  (E.  P.  Dutton, 
New  York,  1914)  $1.50. 

This  book,  with  the  book  previously  suggested  under  Chapter 
II— 

The  Wild  Ngoni,  Elmslie.  These  four  books  give  a  complete 
history  of  a  great  missionary  effort. 

Twenty  Years  in  NyasaJand,  J.  H.  Taylor  (Bethlehem  Printing 
Co.,  Bethlehem,  Pa.,  1912)  $0.75. 

Further  suggestions : 

Eighteen  Years  in  Uganda,  Alfred  Tucker  (Longmans,  Green  & 
Co.,  New  York,  2  vols.,  1911)  $2.10. 

Black  Sheep,  Jean  K.  Mackenzie  (Houghton  Mifflin,  1916)  $1.50. 
Leaflets: 

Paul,  the  Apostle  of  Banza  Manteke,  Rev.  Henry  Richards 
(American  Baptist  Foreign  Missionary  Society,  Ford  Building, 
Boston,  Mass.)  $0.05. 


A  BRIEF  READING  LIST  215 

Dweskula,  Mrs.  Amy  B.  Cowles  (American  Board,  704  Congre- 
gational Building,  Boston,  Mass.)  $0.02;  $0.20  per  doz 

From  the  East  and  from  the  West,  Rev.  George  A.  Wilder  (Ameri- 
can Board,  704  Congregational  House,  Boston,  Mass.) 

At  Dawn,  Lydia  J.  Wellman  (Woman's  Board  of  Missions  of 
the  Interior,  19  South  La  Salle  St.,  Chicago,  111.)  $0  05. 

Hobeama,  Gertrude  R.  Hance  (Woman's  Board,  704  Congrega- 
tional House,  Boston,  Mass.)  $0.02;  $0.20  per  doz. 

The  Brave  Hunchback,  Rev.  W.  H.  Stapleton  (Women's  Board  of 
Foreign  Missions  of  Presbyterian  Church,  156  Fifth  Avenue, 
New  York)  $0.02;  $0.15  per  doz. 

A  Church  with  a  Waiting  List  of  Fifteen  Thousand,  Rev.  A.  W. 
Halsey  (Women's  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  of  Presbyterian 
Church,  156  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York)  $0.03;  $0.30  per  doz. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Pioneering  in  the  Congo,  John  M.  Springer  (Methodist  Book 
Concern,  New  York,  1916)  $1.00. 

Winning  a  Primilive  People,  Donald  Fraser   (E.  P.  Dutton, 
New  York,  1913)  $1.50. 

Twenty  Years  in  Nyasaland,  J.  H.  Taylor  (Bethlehem  Printing 
Co.,  Bethlehem.  Pa.)  $0.75. 

Bolenge,  Mrs.  Royal  J.  Dye  (Foreign  Christian  Missionary 
Society,  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  1909)  $1.25. 

Further  suggestions : 

Eighteen  i'ears  in  Uganda,  Alfred  Tucker  (Longmans,  Green 
&  Co.,  2  vols..  New  York,  1911)  $2.10. 

Leaflets: 

Missions  in  Africa:   The  Congo   (American   Baptist  Foreign 
Missionary  Society,  Ford  Building,  Boston.  Mass.)  $0.10 


216  AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 

African  Missioiis  (Board  of  Foreign  Missions  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  150  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York)  $0.10. 

Nana,  The  Mother,  Jean  Kenyon  Mackenzie  (Women's  Board  of 
Foreign  Missions  of  Presbyterian  Church,  156  Fifth  Avenue, 
New  York)  $0.02;  $0.20  per  doz. 

Historical  Sketch  of  the  Mission  in  Afri/:a  (Board  Foreign 
Missions  of  Presbyterian  Church,  Witherspoon  Bldg.,  Phila- 
delphia, Pa.)  $0.10. 

Striking  Contrasts  in  South  Africa,  Cornelius  H.  Patton  (Ameri- 
can Board,  704  Congregational  Building,  Boston,  Mass.)  $0.05; 
$0.50  per  doz. 

Autobiography  of  Vinda  Biddoa,  A  Congo  Evangelist  (American 
Baptist  Mission  Union,  Ford  Building,  Boston,  Mass.)  $0.01. 

Twenty  Years  in  West  Central  Africa, 

Thfi  East  Central  Africa  Missions  and 

The  American  Board  Mission  in  South  Africa  (The  American 
Board,  704  Congregational  House,  Boston,  Mass.)  $0.05;  $0.60 
per  doz. 

Africa  Mission,  Bishop  Joseph  C.  Hartzell  (Board  of  Foreign 
Missions  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  150  Fifth  Avenue, 
New  York)  $0.10. 


INDEX 


Adiilteries,  men,  149;  women, 

150 
Africa,  opening  up  of,  21 
African,  the,  17,  22,  72-73,  176- 

177,  204-206 
Agricultural  schools,  177 
Ancestor,  skull  of,  89 
Ancestors,  80-88, 103 
Andungo  confesses  sin,  150 
Animist.  Bulu,  66-71;  salvation, 

88;  fear,  102 
Annunciation,  the,  how  receiv- 
ed 94 
Arnot,  Fred  S.,  23,  27 
Asala  and  power  of  God,  125 
Awu  Ding,  115 

Backsliders,  shame  of,  158 
Baganda,  leaders  of,  168 
Bantu,  20,  49,  49-51,  56,  72,  79- 

84,  87,  94,  94-96,   205-206; 

see  Bulu 
Baptism,  153-155 
Baptist  missionaries,  21 
Barnard,  Lady  Anne,  42-44 
Beach  towns,  19 
Bechuana,  Elama  of,  203 
Bekalli,  121,  141,  142,  165,  182 
Blaikie,  W.  Gordon,  23,  28,  34 
Book    of    Common    Worship, 

prayers  from,  14, 136, 172 
Brotherhood,   new   conception 

of,  197 
Bulu,  the,  49-76;  and  God,  79- 

104;   old   beliefs   harmonize 

with    Gospel,    131-132;    see 

Bantu 
Bulu  children  do  not  belong  to 

mother,    62;    contamination 

of.  75 


Bulu  Christians,  receivers  of 
revelations,  129;  the  ten 
tyings,  yoke  of  Christ,  130; 
fall,  158;  159;  excommuni- 
cated, 160;  loj'al  to  confes- 
sion, 161;  faith,  162;  prayer, 
163;  works,  164;  givers  of 
gifts,  166;  see  Christians 

Bulu  man,  a  master,  53;  town, 
custom,  54-55;  cruelties,  55; 
abnegation,  57;  and  woman's 
work,  64;  his  work,  64-65; 
exclusive  privileges,  65 

Bulu  woman,  slave,  59;  mar- 
riage, 59-62;  fetish,  62; 
liberated  by  Christ,  63,  65; 
character,  63;  work,  64; 
privileges  denied,  65;  seventh 
tying,  122-123;  dream  of  a, 
188;  see  Women 


Cannibalism,  executions  for, 
55;  confession  of,  146 

Casalis,  Eugene,  101, 128-129 

Character  of  Bulu  woman,  63 

Characteristics  of  white  man  in 
Africa,  17 

Charms  for  all  events,  90;  and 
ten  tyings,  111-112 

Childhood,  the  new,  191-193; 
see  Bulu  children 

Chief,  Christian,  203 

Christ  and  power  of  fetish,  63; 
liberates  woman,  65;  mes- 
sage, 97;  redeemed  man,  98; 
yoke  of,  130;  a  martyr  for, 
170;  things  of  this  world  be- 
fore, 181;  fruits  of  service, 
201-202 


218 


AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 


Christian,  master,  attracts  pu- 
pils, IIG;  interprets  things  of 
life,  117-118 

Christians,  kindness  among, 
203;  see  Bulu  Christians 

Christianity,  prepared  leaders 
from  heathenism,  143;  fruits 
of,  201-202;  the  salvation  of 
South  African  natives,  205- 
206 

Church,  African,  160;  built  by 
natives,  180;  work  of  evan- 
gelist, 199-202 

City  of  refuge,  the,  133 

Civilization  in  Africa,  curses 
exceed  blessings,  204-206 

Coillard,  Francois,  32,  34,  35, 
44,  133 

Commandments,  see  Heathen 
and,  Tyings,  Ten  Tyings 

Constellation  of  the  hare,  200 

Conversion  through  dreams, 
139;  by  supernatural  means, 
140-141;  by  leaders,  142-144; 
of  Bekalli,  142;  through 
martyrdom  of  friend,  170 

Convert,  adjustments  of  new, 
144;  burdens  to  be  borne, 
145;  confesses  sins,  149-151; 
break  with  fetish,  151-153; 
probation  and  instruction, 
154;  lazy,  157;  see  Statistics 

Craft,  tools  of  a,  113 

Creation,  African  ideas  of,  82- 
84^ 

Criminal  code  changed,  177 

Cruelties,  Bulu,  55;  Bantu,  56 

Cruelty  a  fruit  of  animism,  102 

Custom,  Bulu,  54;  division  of 
labor,  6i;  slaves  to,  66;  con- 
duct of  wives,  114;  the  new, 
173-207 

Dangers,  new,  177-178 

Dawson,  E.  C,  24,  30 

Dead,    communion    with,    89; 


woman  revives  and  converts 

her  village,  140-141 
Death,  Bulu  fear,  68-71;  Thon- 

ga  idea,  85;  paths  beyond, 

dark,  98;  fear  turns  man  to 

God,  138;  advice  at,  140 
Debts,  149-151 
Desert,  African,  23 
Discipline,  ten  tyings  a,   119- 

124;  enforced,  156-158 
Dream  of  mother,  188 
Dreams  of  missionaries,  28-29; 

Bulu    explanation,     89;    of 

black  men,  139-141 
Dress  of  white  man,  175, 187 
du  Plessis,  J.,  30,  56,  72-73,  203 
Dutch  in  Africa,  19 

Egyptian  traders  in  Africa  in 
ancient  times,  20 

Elmslie,  W.  A.,  33,  73-74,  74-76 

English  in  Africa,  19 

Erasmus,  prayer  by,  78 

Estrangement  between  God 
and  man,  85-86 

Evangelist,  180,  199-202,  201- 
202;  see  Prophets 

Evangelists,  native,  appreci- 
ated, 143;  black.  400  sup- 
ported, 166-167 

Evil,  secret,  in  African  church, 
160-161 

Failure,  things  of,  156-158 
Faith,  Bulu  Christians  men  of, 

162-163;  in  Christ,  182 
Family,  new,  187-189;  and  new 

custom,  190-191, 191-193 
Fang,  the,  51, 52, 132-133 
Fatigue,  great,  24 
Fear,  66-71,  102-103,  138 
Fearlessness  of  missionary,  29 
Fetish,   Bulu  yoke,   62;   Bulu 

woman  slave,  motive  of,  62; 

and  Christ,  63;  things  of,  89; 

science     of,     90-91;     tragic 


INDEX 


219 


aspect,   91;   and   relic,    103; 

converts  break  with,  151-153 
Fraser,  Donald,  45,  203 
Freedom,  African,  178-179 

Gain,  Bulu  lust  for,  52-53 

German  in  Africa,  21 

Gifts,  givers  of,  166-167 

God,  the  Bulu  and,  79-104;  not 
an  absentee,  96;  manifested, 
125-129;  Dr.  Good  speaks  of, 
131-132;  the  Fang  and,  132- 
133;  draws  men,  137-138;  a 
bargain  with,  139;  prepares 
leaders,  143 

Good,  Dr.  Adolphus,  21,  30, 
86-87,  131-132 

Goods,  imported,  176 

Gospel,  63-64;  impression  upon 
Bantu,  94-96;  expounded  by- 
native  teacher,  96-100;  im- 
pression made  by,  131-132; 
harmonizes  with  Bulu  belief, 
131-132;  African  preparation 
for,  132-133;  its  coming 
prophesied,  168-169 

Grace,  growth  of,  161-162 

Grenfell,  George,  21 

Hamilton,  Bishop  J.  T.,  103, 
168-169 

Hannington,  James,  24, 30 

Hanno,  21 

Harbors  of  Africa,  15 

Harford-Battersby,  C.  F.,  33 

Headdress,  male,  abandoned, 
175 

Headman,  Christian,  changes 
town,  179-180;  asks  for 
leader,  179-180;  greater  se- 
curity in  town,  180;  praises 
his  Christian  wife,  190-191; 
and  new  justice,  196-197 

Heart,  law  of  life  in,  131-132; 
the  turning  of,  137-138; 
woman,      revived,      exhorts 


community  to  turn,  to  God, 
140-141 
Heathen  and  commandments, 

128-129,  131-132 
Heathenism,  horror  of,  75;  has 
lost  God,  102;  supplies  lead- 
ers, 143;  break  with,  153 
Holy  Spirit,  work  of,  99 
Hospitality,  the  new,  198 
Hottentots,  in  1798,  42-44 
Hysteria,  no  taint  of,  141 

Ibia,  109, 110, 112 
Industrial  schools,  177 
Inner  vision  and  voice,  129 
Instruction  and  baptism,  154- 
155 

Johnson,   Samuel,   prayer   by, 

106 
Johnston,  Sir  H.  H.,  21,  49-51, 

52  72 
Johnston,  W.  C,  87 
Johnston,  Mrs.,  121 
Junod,  Henri,  82-83,  91,  204- 

206 
Justice,  the  new,  196-197 

Kamerun  Colony,  18 
Khama,  of  Bechuana,  203 
Kindness    among    Christians, 

203 
Knox,  John,  prayer  by,  48 
Kumm,  H.  K.  W.,  24 

Labor,  new  thoughts  of,  173 
Laziness  defeats  convert,  157 
Leaders  prepared  by  God,  143 
Life,  racial  thirst  for,  138 
Lives,  Christian,  attest  power 

of  God,  125-129 
Livingstone,  David,  22,  28,  29, 

33,  34 
Love  for  black  friends,  33;  a 

word  of,  99 


220 


AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 


Mackay,  34 

Mackenzie,  John,  31 

Magic,  the  things  of,  110 

Mail  in  Africa,  27-28 

Man,  natural,  law  of  life  in 
heart,  131-132;  Bulu,  see 
Bulu  man 

Marriage  among  the  Bulu,  59- 
62;  Bekalli  and  Christian, 
182-183;  new  women  and 
law,  183-185;  wife  given 
without  goods,  183-184;  of 
friendship,  184-185;  new, 
and  mission  school,  185-186; 
wife  a  witness  to  new,  186- 
187;  old,  made  new,  189 

Martyr  for  Christ,  170 

Mediator,  Bulu  idea  of,  100-101 

Membership,  suspension  from, 
156-158;  of  Elat  church,  157 

Men,  new,  and  new  thoughts, 
180-183 

Menge  converts  her  village, 
140-141 

Milligan,  Robert  H.,  89,  103, 
132-133 

Mission  station,  1798,  42-44; 
neutral  ground  for  natives, 
133 

Missionary,  trail,  22;  settle- 
ment, 25-27;  mail,  27-28; 
dreams,  28-29;  sufferings,  29; 
fearlessness,  29;  faith  in  God, 
30;  friends,  31;  love  for 
black  friends,  33;  devotion  to 
fellow  workers,  33;  hour  of 
disillusion,  34;  functions  at 
outposts,  35;  functions  at 
central  stations,  36;  statistics 
measure  of  labor,  37-41; 
appreciates  native  helpers, 
143-144;  see  White  man 

Missionary  societies,  Protes- 
tant, number  in  Africa,  25; 
statistics  of  results,  38-41 


Missionaries,  number  in  Africa, 
24;  labors  foretold  by  Afri- 
can, 168-169 
Moffat,  Robert,  29, 31, 32 
Money,  influence  of,  174 
Monogamy  the  ideal  for  native 
convert,  147;  how  attained, 
147-149 
Moravian  mission,  42-44 
Mothers  and  tribe  of  God,  191 
Murder,  confession  of,  145-146; 
discouraged,  173 

Nassau,  Robert  H.,  81 
Neighbor,    the   new,    194-198; 

the,  evangelist,  199-202 
Neighborhood,  the  new,   193- 

194 
Ngoni,  Polygamy  among,  73- 

74 
Nyasaland,  an  incident  in,  168 

Opening  up  of  Africa,  21 
Opportunities,  new,  176-177 
Outposts,  missionary  at,  35 

Parsons,  Ellen,  30,  86,  131-132 

Penalties  of  taboo,  93 

Pilkinton,  George,  33 

Polygamy  among  the  Ngoni, 
73-74;  does  not  prevent  im- 
morality, 74;  how  adjusted 
by  convert,  147-149 

Portuguese  in  Africa,  19,  21 

Prayer  of  Bantu,  87;  Bulu 
Christians  men  of,  163-164; 
of  wife  for  heathen  husband, 
189 

Prayers,  14,  48,  78,  106,  136. 
172 

Presbyterian  missions,  16,  21 

Privileges  of  sexes,  65 

Probation  and  baptism,  154- 
155 

Products  of  Africa,  19,  22 

Property,  woman's  hunger,  178 


INDEX 


221 


Prophecy   about   missionaries, 

168-169 
Prophets  to  care  for  tribe  of 

God,  180-182;  see  Evangelist, 

Evangelists 
Protection,  sense  of  Divine,  101 

Questions  on  chapters,  46,  76, 
104, 134, 171,  207 

Rainy  season,  23 

Relic  and  fetish,  103 

Repentance,  158 

Restoration,  159 

Restraint,  God's  law  new,  178- 

179 
Revelation,  Bulu  receivers,  129- 

130 
Righteousness,    evangelist   on, 

181 

Sacrifice  of  Bantu,  87 

Salvation,  animistic  view,  88 

School  supported  by  natives, 
180;  mission,  and  new  mar- 
riage, 185-186;  the  new,  193; 
Nyunga's  service  in  a,  196; 
a  stone  for  sharpening,  197 

Service  of  wife  under  new  cus- 
tom, 186-187;  new  schools 
prepare  for,  193;  of  new 
neighbor,  194-198 

Settlements  of  white  man,  19 

Seventh  tying  and  Bulu  wom- 
en, 122-123 

Sex,  things  of,  56-82;  solidarity 
of,  64;  law  of,  apportions 
work,  65;  ten  tyings  basis  of, 
equality,  112;  new  things  of, 
186-187 

Shame,  things  of,  contamina- 
tion of  children,  75;  and  the 
new  family,  191-193 

Skull  of  ancestor  a  medium  of 
communication,  89 

Slavery  of  Bulu  woman,  59 


Spirit  and  shadow,  70-71;  com- 
munion, skull  of  ancestor  a 
medium  of,  89 

Spirits,  grades  and  types,  88; 
service  to  meet  needs,  89 

Statistics  of  missions,  37-41 

Strabo,  79 

Sufferings  of  missionary,  29 

Suleyman,  79 

Supernatural,  Bulu  struggle 
with,  88;  commerce,  89; 
element  in  conversion,  140- 
141 

Sutherland,  James,  33 

Taboo,  drives  man  from  home, 
67-68;  vital  in  animism,  91; 
defined,  91 ;  types,  92;  penal- 
ties, 93;  the  ten  tjTugs  the 
perfect,  107 

Taxes  paid  by  men,  173 

Teacher,  native,  expounds  Gos- 
pel, 96-100 

Teaching,  Baganda  show  ap- 
titude, 168 

Ten  tyings,  the,  107-134;  the 
perfect  taboo,  107;  and  man- 
made  yoke,  107;  and  fear  of 
supernatural,  109-110;  and 
charms,  111-112;  and  sex- 
bondage,  112;  interpreted, 
117-118;  a  discipline,  119- 
124;  and  power  of  God,  125- 
129;  prized  by  Bulu  Chris- 
tians, 130;  suspensions  of 
church  members,  156-158 

Thoughts,  new,  180-183 

Tolo,  things  of,  200-201 

Tooke,  W.  Hammond,  20, 79 

Town,  the  white  man's,  44; 
the  Bulu,  54;  the  new,  179- 
180 

Trade  of  white  man,  19 

Trades,  natives  urged  to  learn, 
176;  instruction  in,  needed, 
177 


B22 


AN  AFRICAN  TRAIL 


Traders,  Egyptian,  in  Africa, 
20 

Traditions  of  ancestors,  80-86 

Trail  today,  24 

Travel,  African,  25, 45 

Tribe,  the  new,  137-171 

Tribe  of  God,  ten  tyings  the 
custom,  114;  member  yearns 
for  fuller  knowledge,  115; 
things  of.  applied  to  life, 
117-118;  137-171;  prophets 
to  care  for,  180-182;  custom 
in  new  family,  190-191 ;  mem- 
bers of,  as  mothers,  191 

Tucker,  Bishop  Alfred  R.,  S5. 
168,  170 

"Tying,"  taboo  a,  94 

Tyings  recognized  by  natural 
man,  97;  see  Ten  tyings 

Vices,  Bantu,  56-57 
Violence,  new  attitudes,  173 
Vision  and  voice,  inner,  129 

Wanji  and  Christian  wife,  126- 
128 

War  discouraged,  173 

Wameck,  142-143 

Warneck,  John,  102-103 

West  coast,  19 

White  man  in  Africa,  15-46; 
approach  by  sea,  15;  charac- 
teristics, 17;  effect  of  contact 
with  Africans,  17;  settle- 
ments, 19;  trade,  19-21;  way 
of  invasion,  21;  influence,  22; 
trail  of  missionary,  22;  secu- 
lar influences  making  for 
change,  173-178;  his  dress 
adopted,  175;  male  head- 
dress abandoned,  175;  evil 
effects  from,  178,  204-206; 
see  Missionary 


Wife  given  without  goods,  183- 
184;  a  witness  to  the  new 
marriage,  186-187;  prays  for 
heathen  husband,  189;  Chris- 
tian,   praised    by    heatheo 
husband,  190-191;  see  Wives 
Witchcraft  encouraged  by  po- 
lygamy,   74;    arduous    and 
dangerous,    90-91;    involves 
great  fear,    102;   ten  tyings 
and.  111;  murder  to  avenge, 
145-146;  mourning  and  ac- 
cusation of,  198-199;  lessened 
by  Christian  chief,  203 
Withdrawalof  God,  86 
Witness  unto  death,  170 
Wives,    young,    instructed   by 
older  women,   113;  conduct 
and    custom    of    husband's 
tribe,  114;  see  Wife 
Woman,  Bulu,  see  Bulu  woman 
Women,  Bulu  lust  for,  52-53; 
the  workers  of  the  tribe,  55; 
abuse  of,  discouraged,   173; 
"himger    for    goods,"    178; 
new,  and  law  marriage,  183- 
185 
Work  of  Bulu  woman,  64-65 
Works,  Bulu  Christian  a  man 

of,  164-165 
Workers,   devotion   to   fellow, 
33;  native  Christian,  appre- 
ciated by  missionaries,  143- 
144 
World,  end  of,  103;  Christians 
led  away  by  things  of,  160; 
things  of  this,  before  Christ, 
181-182 
Worship,  daily,  by  natives,  180 

Zambe,   his  work  as   Creator, 

83,  84;  see  God 
Ze,  a  Christian  wife,  126-128 
Ze  Tembe,  prayers  of,  163-164 


Date  Due 

^m  '^    *' 

f 

1 

^ 

BW9340  .M157 
An  African  trail, 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Ubrary 


1   1012  00019  0712 


